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GOLDEN-WINGED WARBLER. 



Sylvia chrysoptera, Linn. 



PLATE CCCCXIV. Male and Femaljs. 



Although I have met with this species entering the United States 

 from the Texas in the month of April, and have procured several spe- 

 cimens in Kentucky and Louisiana, as well as a single one in New 

 Jersey, I never had the good fortxme to find its nest. When it first 

 makes its appearance in Louisiana or Kentucky, it usually resorts to 

 the higher branches of trees, where, amid the opening leaflets and blos- 

 soms, it actively searches for its insect food, occasionally following its 

 prey on wing to some distance, and moving by short leaps among the 

 twigs, in the manner of Sylvia carhonata of my first volume, which, in 

 its elongated and slender shape, it in some measure resembles ; al- 

 though the latter has been pointed out by the Prince of Musignano as 

 identical with the Cape May Warbler, Sylvia mariiima, in which erro- 

 neous opinion he has been supported by Sir William Jaudine. I 

 never could in the smallest degree assimilate the movements of the 

 Golden-winged Warbler to those of the Titmice. Indeed in this re- 

 spect these birds are quite different, as they are in their manner of 

 flight, which, in the species now under consideration is elevated, swift, 

 and irregularly undulated, until it is about to alight, when it dives to- 

 ward the spot selected by it, as most Warblers are wont to do. I never 

 saw a bird of this species in autumn, and therefore infer that its south- 

 ward journey must be accomplished in a very secret and careful man- 

 ner, or by night. A male and a female are figured in their perfect 

 spring plumage. 



Sylvia chrtsopteha, Linn. Syst. Nat. vol. i. p. 333. — Lath. Jud. Ornith. vol. ii. 



p. 541. 

 Golden-winged Warbler, Sylvia chrysoptera, Wils. Amer. Ornith. vol. ii. 



p. 113, pi. 15, iig. 6, male.— Bonap. Amer. Ornith. vol. i. p. 12, pi. l,fig. 3, female. 

 Golden-winged Warbler, Nuttall, Manual, vol. i. p. 411. 



Male in spring. Plate CCCCXIV. Fig. 4. 



Bill shorter than the head, slender, conical, compressed toward the 

 end, tapering to an acute point ; upper mandible with the dorsal line 

 almost perfectly straight, being very slightly convex toward the end, 

 the ridge narrow, the sides sloping at the base, rounded toward the 



