266 NASHVILLE WARBLER. 
NASHVILLE WARBLER.—SYLVIA RUFICAPILLA.— Fre. 126 
Peale’s Museum, No. 7789. 
VERMIVORA RUBRICAPILLA. — Swatxson.* 
Sylvia rubricapilla, Wils. Catal. — Bonap. Eyece: p- 87. — Sylvicola (Vermivora) 
rubricapilla, North. Zool. ii. p. 220.—The Nashville Warbler, Awd. pl. 89; 
Orn. Biog. i. p. 450. 
Tuer very uncommon notes of this little bird were familiar to me 
for several days before I succeeded in obtaining it. These notes very 
much resembled the breaking of small dry twigs, or the striking of 
small pebbles of different sizes smartly against each other for six or 
seven times, and loud enough to be heard at the distance of thirty or 
forty yards. It was some time before I could ascertain whether the 
sound proceeded from a bird or an insect. At length I discovered the 
bird, and was not a little gratified at finding it an entire new and 
hitherto undescribed species. I was also fortunate enough to meet 
afterwards with two others exactly corresponding with the first, all of 
them being males. These were shot in the state of Tennessee, not 
far from Nashville. It had all the agility and active habits of its 
family, the Worm-eaters. 
The length of this species is four inches and a half, breadth, seven 
inches; the upper parts of the head and neck, light ash, a little in- 
clining to olive ; crown, spotted with deep chestnut in small touches ; 
a pale yellowish ring round the eye; whole lower parts, vivid yellow, 
except the middle of the belly, which is white; back, yellow olive, 
slightly skirted with ash; rump and tail-coverts, rich yellow olive ; 
wings, nearly black, broadly edged with olive; tail, slightly forked, 
and very dark olive; legs, ash; feet, dirty yellow; bill, tapering to a 
fine point, and ansky ash; no white on wings or tail; eye, hazel. 
* Wilson discovered this species, and aflerwards, in his Catalogue of Birds in 
the United States, changed the specific name as above. Like the last, it seems 
very rare; Wilson saw only three; Audubon, three or four; and a single indi- 
vidual was shot by the over-land arctic expedition. “ The latter was killed hopping 
about the branches of a tree, and emitting a etree ae neue something like the 
whetting of a saw.” The nest does not yet seem to be known. — Ep. 
