GNATCATCHEK. 217 



Sub-family POLIOPTILINiE. Gnatcatchees. 

 Tarsi scute] late. Wing not longer than the rounded tail. 



Genus POLIOPTILA. Sclater. 



Bill attenuated, nearly as long as the head, depressed at base ; rictus well bristled. 

 Tarsi longer than middle toe ; toes small, outer lateral longer than inner. Tail grad- 

 uated, the feathers rounded at tip. 



POLIOPTILA C^ .ULEA (L.) Scl. 



Blue-Grray Grnatcatch.er- 



f 



Sylvia ccerulea, Kirtland, Ohio Geolog. Surv., 1838, 163. 



Sylvania cwrulea, Nuttall, Man., 2nd Ed., i, 1840, 337. — Read, Fam. Visitor, iii, 1853, 367 ; 

 Philad. Acad. Nat. Soi., vi, IS.'iS, 395. 



view, I am induced to offer for the pages of the Journal of Science, the following ex- 

 tracts from my notes and memorandums, made during the last three years. 



A flock of Bohemian wax-chatterers (Bomtydlla garrula,) consisting of fifty or sixty 

 individuals, was frequently seen in a marsh at the old mouth of the Cuyahoga river, near 

 the city of Cleveland duriug the month of March of the present year. They were usually 

 engaged in feeding on the pulps and seeds of the swamp rose, and as they were mistaken 

 by the sportsmen for the common cherry bird (-B. carolinensis) they were permitted to 

 pursue their occupation without interruption. 



I procured a fine specimen which is preserved in my cabinet; another is in the cab- 

 inet of Prof. Ackley of this city. 



We believe this to be the first instance in which this bird has been taken within 

 the United States, or has been known to visit us in any considerable numbers ; though 

 we learn from the appendix to Nuttall's Ornithology, and also from Peabody's Report on 

 the Birds of Massachusetts, that the younger Audubon once pursued an individual ot 

 this species in that State. 



Nuttall says, " the wax-chatterer, hitherto in America, seen only in the vicinity of 

 the Athabasca river, near the region of the Rocky mountains in the month of March, is 

 of common ooourance as a passenger throughout the colder regions of the whole northern 

 hemisphere. In spring and late in autumn they visit Northern Asia or Siberia and 

 Eastern Europe in vast numbers, but elsewhere are only uncertain stragglers. 



Their size, markings, and habits readily distinguish them from the cherry or cedar 

 bird. Justice is by no means done to their colors and beauty of form, in the figure 

 given of the species by Bonaparte, in the third volume of his American Ornithology. 



An hyperborean phalarope {Phalaropus hyperioreas) was shot on Lake Erie, near the 

 pier of Cleveland harbor, last November, by a young man in my employment, while pur- 

 suing a wounded gull. 



The phalarope was a young bird in winter plumage. It is preserved in my cabinet. 

 Little could be learned of its habits. It was a solitary individual, and when first dis- 

 covered was resting on the water, where it seemed to be as much at home as any of the 

 gulls with which it was associating. 



The yellow throated gray warbler {Sylvia pensilis) must be considered not a rare an- 

 nual visitor, even to the northern parts of Ohio, though Mr. Andubon informs his readers 

 that " they confine themselves to the southern Statfes, seldom moving further towards 

 the middle district than North Carolina," and "do not ascend the Mississippi further 



