BAY-BREASTED WARBLER, 237 
BAY-BREASTED WARBLER. 
DENDROICA CASTANEA. 
CHAR. Male: back grayish olive, streaked with black; forehead and 
sides of head black; sides of neck buffy; throat, breast, and sides chest- 
nut ; remainder of under parts buffish ; wing-bars and patches on tail white. 
Female : above, olive streaked with black ; beneath, buffy, sides and breast 
tinged with dull rufous. Length 5% to 6 inches. 
Nest. In an open woodland, on horizontal branch of coniferous tree 
10 to 20 feet from the ground; of twigs, shreds of bark, grass roots, and 
moss, lined with fine roots, moss, or pine-needles. 
£ggs. 3-6 (usually 4); white, with blue tint, or bluish green, spotted 
with reddish brown ; 0.70 X 0.50. 
This is a still rarer and more transient visitor than the last. 
It arrives in Pennsylvania from the South some time in April 
or about the beginning of May, and towards the 12th or 15th 
of the same month it visits Massachusetts, but seldom stays 
more than a week or ten days, and is very rarely seen on its 
return in the autumn. Audubon once observed several in 
Louisiana late in June, so that it probably sometimes breeds 
in very secluded places without regularly proceeding to the 
northern regions. It is an active insect-hunter, and keeps 
much towards the tops of the highest trees, where it darts about 
with great activity, and hangs from the twigs with fluttering 
wings. One of these birds, which was wounded in the wing, 
soon became reconciled to confinement, and greedily caught 
and devoured the flies which I offered him; but from the 
extent of the injury, he did not long survive. In habits and 
manners, as well as markings, this species greatly resembles 
the preceding. 
This Warbler is exceptional in being more abundant in New 
England in spring than inautumn. Mr. Mcllwraith reports that 
the same rule obtains in Ontario, but Dr. Wheaton considered that 
in Ohio the birds were more numerous during the autumn; and 
these apparently conflicting statements suggest an interesting phase 
in the question of migration routes. 
The bird is common as a summer resident in the northern por- 
tions of New England, New York, and Michigan, though rather rare 
