454 YELLOW-POLL WARBLER. 



MusiGNANo, in London, my friend Dr Bachman and myself having dis- 

 covered the error soon after the publication of my first volume. 



The history of the Yellow-poll Warbler is very imperfectly given 

 in that volume ; but I am now enabled to repair this fault, after 

 having studied its habits during the breeding season, when it is dis- 

 persed over the whole extent of the United States. Its migrations 

 northward are almost as wonderful us those of several other birds, that 

 seem, as it were, not to have been endowed with sufficient power of flight 

 to enable them to traverse a vast extent of country. Yet it proceeds 

 in summer as far as the 68th parallel, where it was found by Dr Rich- 

 ardson in numbers and breeding. It comes into the United States 

 from the south at the early period mentioned, but thousands follow in 

 the wake of the first that are seen in Louisiana, for, I met with great 

 numbers during the whole month of April, when on my way to the 

 Texas, as well as after my arrival in that country, where they threw 

 themselves into all the bushes along the sea-shore, apparently for the 

 purpose of spending the night. At this period they are quite silent, 

 and many of them have not yet obtained the reddish spots on the 

 breast so conspicuous at a later season. 



Mr NuTTALL was the first naturalist who observed the very dubi- 

 ous method in which it contrives to rid itself of the charge of rearing 

 the young of the Cow Bird. " It is amusing," he says, " to observe 

 the sagacity of this little bird in disposing of the eggs of the vagrant 

 and parasitic Cow Troopial. The egg deposited before the laying of 

 the rightful tenant, too large for ejectment, is ingeniously incarce- 

 rated in the bottom of the nest, and a new lining placed above it, so 

 that it is never hatched to prove the dragon of the brood. Two in- 

 stances of this kind occiu'red to the observation of my friend Mr 

 Charles Pickering ; and last summer I obtained a nest with the ad- 

 ventitious egg about two-thirds buried, the upper edge only being vi- 

 sible, so that, in many instances, it is probable that this species escapes 

 from the unpleasant position of becoming a nurse to the sable orphan 

 of the Cow Bird. She, however, acts faithfully the part of a foster-pa- 

 rent when the egg is laid after her own." 



The following note from my friend Dr T. M. Brewer shews that 

 this little bird is capable of still greater exploits. " There is a very 

 interesting item in the history of the Yellow-poll Warbler, which has 

 been noticed only within a few years, and which is well deserving of 



