OF NEW ENGLAND. 105 
tainly greatly benefit him by their constant industry in de- 
stroying insects, particularly small caterpillars and canker- 
worms, of which they are very fond. 
(B) piscotor. Prairie Warbler. 
(In Eastern Massachusetts, a summer-resident of no great 
rarity.) 
(a). About 43 inches long. Olive above, with brick-red 
spots on the back. Under parts, bright yellow. A peculiar 
mark on the side of the head, and side-streaks on the throat 
and breast, black. (Details omitted.) 
(b). The nest of the Prairie Warbler differs from that of the 
Yellow Bird (A) in being usually lined thickly with horse- 
hairs (whereas the other is often lined with a dun-colored 
plant-down), and in being almost invariably semi-pensile. It 
is usually placed within a few feet of the ground, in a bush or 
low tree, in a rocky pasture or the “‘ scrub.” The eggs average 
-65X*52 of an inch, and are pure white, generally either with 
delicate lilac (and a few inconspicuous light brown) markings, 
which form a ring about the crown (such being those which I 
have found near Boston), or with lilac, purplish, and umber- 
brown markings. Near Boston one set of three or four eggs 
is laid in the first week of June. 
(c). The Prairie Warblers are among the smallest and most 
retired of their family. They are summer-residents in the 
eastern United States so far to the northward as Massachu- 
setts, in which State they are rather rare in the western part, 
but quite common in some other portions. In certain localities 
near Boston they are quite abundant from the second or third 
week of May until the latter part of August. They frequent 
almost exclusively rocky pasture-lands and the “scrub,” and I 
have but once seen or heard them elsewhere, in that case hay- 
ing heard their song in some shrubbery on a cultivated estate, 
far from their usual haunts. Though perhaps, as Wilson re- 
marks, easily approached and not shy, yet they almost invaria- 
bly shun the neighborhood of man, and live quite solitarily in 
pairs among the pastures where they build their nests. There, 
