218 BLACKBURNIAN WARBLER. 
According to Dr. T. M. Brewer, who found the Black-polls breeding around East- 
port, Me., and Grand Menan, N. B., they confine themselves to the thick swampy groves 
of evergreens, where they breed on the edges of woods. All of the several nests he met 
with in these localities were built in thick spruce trees, about eight feet from the 
ground, and in the midst of foliage so dense as hardly to be noticeable. The nests were 
large and bulky for the size of the bird. They were constructed chiefly of a collection 
of slender young ends of branches of pines, firs, and spruces, interwoven with and tied 
together by long branches of Caladonia lichens, slender herbaceous roots, and finer 
sedges. The nests were strongly built, compact: and homogeneous, and were elaborately 
lined -with fine panicles of grasses and fine straw. In all the nests found, the aumber of 
eggs was five. The ground-color is a beautiful white, with a slight tinge of pink when 
fresh. They are blotched and dotted over the entire surface with profuse markings of a 
subdued lavender, and deeper markings of a dark purple intermixed with lighter spots 
of reddish-brown. 
NAMES: BLacK-POLL WarRBLER, Black-poll. 
SCIENTIFIC NAMES: Muscicapa striata Foster (1772). Sylvia striata Lath. (1790). DENDROICA 
STRIATA Barp (1858). : 
DESCRIPTION: Male, above, slaty, with an olivaceous tinge, streaked with black; Crown down to the 
eyes, glossy black. Sides of head, white; under-parts, white, with a chain of black streaks from chin 
to tail; wings, dusky, with two white cross-bars; tail, dusky, with small white spots on the outer 
feathers. Female, similar, but crown like the back; under-parts, tinged with greenish-yellow. 
Length, 5.25 to 5.50; wings, 2.80; tail, 2.25. 
a 
BLACKBURNIAN WARBLER. 
Dendroica blackburniz Batrp. 
PuaTe XII. Fie. 1. 
Slee BACK on my ten years’ residence in different parts of the South, I can 
Bk recall no pleasanter time than my first winter in south-eastern Texas. In my daily 
rambles over prairies, through woods, over swamps, and cultivated lands, I was sure 
to make some new and interesting discoveries. Many a locality still retained a primitive 
quiet and simplicity that was all the more inviting from its contrast with the enervating 
and bustling life of Chicago, my former place of residence. During the latter part of 
February and the beginning of March, many flowers commenced to bloom. March was 
an exceedingly pleasant month with now and then a cold “Norther” and a frosty night. 
Above all I missed the distinguishing line between winter and spring. The vegetation, 
indeed, takes a partial rest during the winter months, “but it is checked rather than 
suppressed, and the reign of summer begins without that interval of preparation which 
we call spring.” The holly with its beautiful evergreen foliage and shining red berries, 
the magnolia and live-oak, and many other trees and shrubs are broad-leaved ever- 
greens, but some of them, curious enough, assume bright autumn tints in spring, when 
