192 
NBSTS AND EGGS OF 
with their parents repair to moist rather than dry thickets, because of the 
greater abundance of insects to be found in such places, and here they 
remain until the last of September, when they retire south to winter in 
Guatemala, and other parts of Central America, as well as in the West 
Indies and Peru. 
About the time of departure, the young male resembles in plumage 
the mother, hut differs in having the upper tail-coverts and tail a deep 
black color, instead of having the former olive and the latter, dusky. In 
addition the dorsal region is more greenish-olive, and the abdomen and 
crissum of a purer white. He is slow in acquiring the perfect adult 
j^lumage, and does not attain to it until his third year. At or about this 
time his predominant color is black. This is variegated by the white ab- 
domen and under tail-coverts, and by a central band on the breast of the 
same color, and still further by the bases of all the quills (excepting the 
inner and outer proximal halves of all the tail-feathers but the middle,) a 
patch on each side of the breast, and the axillary region, being of an 
orange-red hue, which shades to a vermilion on the breast. The female 
has the black replaced by olive-green above, and brownish-Avhite beloAV. 
Yellow takes the place of orange, and ash that of black upon the head. 
There is also a grayish-Avhite line and ring around the eye. Their length 
is five and a quarter inches, wing tAvo and a half, and tail two and nine- 
twentieths. 
The eggs of the Eedstart are four in number, and bear some resem- 
blance to those of the common Blue-eyed Yellow Warbler. Their ground- 
color is a grayish-Avhite, and this is quite thickly sprinkled all over, but 
more especially about the larger extremity, Avith shades of broAvn and 
black. They vary in length from .54 to .67 of an inch, and in breadth 
from .44 to .53. Specimens from widely sejAarated localities, when com- 
pared Avith others from the Middle Atlantic States, show the same amount 
of variation in size and general appearance. In Eastern Pennsylvania the 
species is single-brooded, and the same may be said of other sections of 
the country Avhich the birds frequent. 
