DENDEOECA CASTANEA, BAY-BREASTED WARBLER. 61 



more compact. They are built chiefly of moss, mixed with small twigs, 

 weedy and fibrous material, and rootlets; but are lined, lilie the others, 

 entirely with fine grasses. 



DENDECEOA OASTANEA, (Wils.) Bd. 



Bay-breasted Warbler. 



Sylvia castanea, Wils., Am. Orn. ii, 1810, 97, pi. 14, f. 4.— Bp., Syn. 1828, 80.— Nutt., 



Man. i, 1832, 382.— AuD., Orn. Biog. i, 1832, 358, pi. 69. 

 Sylvicola caslanca, Rich., List, 18.37. — Bp., List, 1838, 22 ; Consp. i, 1850, 308.— AuD., Syn. 



1839, 53.— AuD., B. Am. ii, 1841, 34, pi. 80.— Hoy, Smiths. Eep. 1864, 438 



(Missouri). 

 Mniotilta castanea, Gray, Genera of Birds. 

 Sliimanphus castaneus, Cab., Mus. Heiu. i. 1850, 19. 

 Dendroeca castanea, Bd., B. N. A. 1858,276; Rev. 1865, 189. — ScL. & Salv., Ibis, i, 1859, 



11 (Guatemala) ; Cass., Pr. Phila. Acad. 1860, 193 (Darien).— Lawk., Auu. Lye. 



N. Y. 1861, 322 (Pauama).— Mayn., Guide, 1870, 103.— COUES, Kej-, 1872, 101 ; 



and of most late writers, 

 t Sylvia autumnalis, Wils., Am. Orn. iii, 1811, 65, pi. 23, f. 3.— Ndtt., Man. i, 1832, 390.— 



AUD., Orn. Biog. i, 1832, 449, pi. 88. 



-Haft. — Eastern North America ; North to Hudson's Bay ; West to the Lower Missouri. 

 Breeds from Northern New England northward. Winters in Central America. Mi- 

 grant only in most parts of the United States. No Mexican nor West Indian quotations. 



The earlier authors left the history of this species very incomplete, 

 having had, from some cause, little opportunity of becoming acquainted 

 with it ; nevertheless, it is a common bird of the Eastern United States. 

 I observed it every season when collecting about Washington, D. 0., 

 and took a large number of specimens. It passes through the Middle 

 States in May and returns in September, being found during the whole 

 of these months, sometimes, particularly in the fall, in abundance. It 

 may be looked for in any woods, where the other species of the genus 

 stop to rest and feed during their journeys, and in orchards — the last a 

 favorite resort of Warblers of various kinds in the spring when the ap- 

 ple, pear, peach, and cherry-trees are in blossom, the birds doubtless 

 being attracted by the different minute insects that infest our fruit trees. 

 The breeding places of the Bay-breasted Warbler, not to mention its 

 nest and eggs, were for a long while unknown; latterly the desired in- 

 formation has been sui^plied. Mr. 0. J. Maynard, a very good observer 

 and collecter, has published a satisfactory account. He took two nests 

 with eggs, June 8th, at Umbagog, where, he says, the species is the 

 most abundant of the Sylvicoliclw. Both were placed on the horizontal 

 branch of a hemlock-tree, fifteen or twenty feet from the ground, and 

 seemed large for the size of the bird, resembling those of the Pnrple 

 Pinch. They were built of fine, dead larch twigs, mixed in one instance 

 with long tree-moss, in the other with a few grass-stems, and smoothly 

 lined with black fibrous rootlets, some moss and rabbit's hair. Exter- 

 nal diameter five and one-half to six inches, internal two and one-half 

 to three; depth outside two and one-half to three, the cavity one and 

 one-fourth to one and one-half; they differed in shape, the broader nest 

 being the shallower one. One contained three eggs, the other two; the 

 five ranged from 0.65 to 0.71 long, by 0.50 to 0.53 broad. The ground 

 color was bluish-green, more or less thickly speckled with brown all 

 over, the markings becoming confluent, or nearlj' so, at or around the 

 larger end, where the brown was mixed with some lilac or umber 

 markings. 



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