BLUE-WINGED WARBLER 



67 



Fall Migration. — The last one noted at Lanesboro, Minn., was 

 on September i, 1889, but the southern part of the breeding-ground 

 is not deserted until early in October. 



The Bird and its Haunts. — Although the Blue-wing is locally 

 common, its insignificant song and generally quiet ways make it a com- 

 paratively inconspicuous bird, likely to be noticed only by those who 

 look for it. It is not, as a rule, a deep woods Warbler, though I 

 have found it nesting in heavy forest, but prefers rather, bordering 

 second growths, with weedy openings, from which it may follow 

 lines or patches of trees to haunts some distance from the woods. 



It is rather deliberate in movements for a Warbler, and is less 

 of a flutterer than the average member of the genus Dendroica. 

 Some of its motions suggest those of the tree-inhabiting Vireos, while 

 at times, as the bird hangs downward from some cocoon it is investi- 

 gating, one is reminded of a Chickadee. 



The Blue wing's unsettled relations with the Golden-wing and 

 with Brewster's and Lawrence's Warblers, create a special interest 

 in its life history, and the fact, that among this group of birds song 

 is not always diagnostic, makes it well worth while to attempt to see 

 the singer of every supposed Blue-wing song. 



The following study of the Blue-wing is contributed by F. L. 

 Bums, of Berwyn, Pennsylvania: 



"This species is here an inhabitant of the rather open swampy 

 thickets, upland clearings, neglected pastures and fence rows, where 



