BAY-BREASTED WARBLER. 161 
fight, the snake retreating; and, at last, he took shelter in the wall. 
The Cat Bird had young ones in the bushes near the field of battle. 
“This may show the possibility of poisonous snakes biting birds ; 
‘the operation of the poison causing them to become, as it were, 
fascinated.” : 
—~>——. 
BAY-BREASTED WARBLER.— SYLVIA CASTANEA. — Fie. 61. 
Parus peregrinus, The Little Chocolate-breasted Titmouse, Bartram, p. 292. 
— Peale’s Museum, No. 7311. 
SYLVIOOLA CASTANEA, — Swainson. 
Sylvia castanea, Bonap. Synop. p. 81. * 
Tuis very rare:species passes through Pennsylvania about the begin- 
ning of May, and soon disappears. It has many of the habits of the 
Titmouse, and all its activity ; hanging among the extremities of the 
twigs, and darting about from place to place, with restless diligence, 
in search of various kinds of the larvee of insects. It is never seen 
here in summer, and very rarely on its return, owing, no doubt, to the 
greater abundance of foliage at that time, and to the silence and real 
scarcity of the species. Of its nest-and eggs we are altogether un- . 
informed. ; 
The length of this bird is five inches, breadth eleven ; throat, breast, 
and sides under the wings, pale chestnut, or bay; forehead, cheeks, 
line over and strip through the eye, black; crown, deep chestnut; 
lower parts, dull yellowish white ; hind head and back, streaked with 
black, on a grayish buff ground; wings, brownish black, crossed with 
two bars of white; tail, forked, brownish black, edged with ash, the 
three exterior feathers marked with a spot of white on the inner edges ; 
behind the eye is a broad, oblong spot of yellowish white. The female 
has much less of the bay color on the breast; the black on the fore- 
head is also less, and of a brownish tint. The legs and feet, in both, 
_are dark ash, the claws extremely sharp for climbing and hanging ; 
the bill is black ; irides, hazel. F 
The ornithologists of Europe take no notice of this species, and 
have probably never met with it. Indeed, it is so seldom seen in this 
part of Pennsylvania, that few even of our own writers have men- 
tioned it. 
I Jately received a very neat drawing of this bird, done by a young 
lady in Middletown, Connecticut, where it seems. also to be a rare 
species, 
om According to Bonaparte, discovered and first described by Wilson. — Ep. 
ri 
