THE YELLOW-CROWNED WOOD-WARBLER. 25 



that one can instantly recognise the species by it among a dozen. They 

 rarely enter the woodlands, but prefer the neighbourhood of cultivated or 

 old fields, the nurseries, gardens, and trees about towns, villages, or farm- 

 houses, or by the sides of roads. They are careless of man, allowing him to 

 approach within a few yards, or even feet, without manifesting much alarm. 

 As they breed so far north, it is probable that they raise only one brood in 

 the season. They return south early in September, already clad in their 

 winter dress. 



• Yellow-rump Warbler, Sylvia coronata, Wils. Amer. Orn., vol. ii. p. 138. 

 Sylvia coronata, Bonap. Syn., p. 78. 



Yellow-crowned Warbler, or Myrtle Bird, Sylvia coronata, Nutt. Man., vol. i. p. 361. 

 Yellow-rump Warbler, Sylvia coronata, Aud. Orn. Biog., vol. ii. p. 303. 



Second quill longest, third scarcely shorter, first longer than fourth; tail 

 slightly emarginate. Male with the upper parts deep ash-grey, streaked 

 with black; crown, rump, and a patch on the sides of the body, rich yellow: 

 secondary coverts, and first row of small coverts tipped with white, which 

 forms two bars on the wing; quills dark brown, margined with light greyish- 

 brown; tail feathers brownish-black, margined with ash-grey, the outer three 

 on each side with a white patch on the inner web near the end; a slender 

 white line over the eye; feathers of the eyelids white; lore and cheek black; 

 throat white; lower neck, fore part of breast and sides variegated with black, 

 the tips of the feathers being white; the rest of the lower parts white. Fe- 

 male without the yellow spot on the crown, although the feathers there are 

 tinged with that colour at the base; the upper parts tinged with light brown, 

 the yellow spots on the sides and rump paler. 



Male, 5|, 8-*-. 



From Texas northward, and throughout the interior. Extremely common. 

 Migratory. 



Iris versicolor. 



Iris versicolor, Willd. Sp. PL, vol. i. p. 233. Pursch, Fl. Amer. Sept., vol. i. p. 29. — ■ 

 Triandria Monogynia, Linn. — Irides, Juss. 



Beardless; the stem round, flexuous, equal in height to the leaves, which 

 are ensiform; the stigmas equalling the inner petals; capsules ovate, with 

 their angles obtuse. This Iris is extremely common in all the swampy parts 

 of the Southern States, and extends far up along the Mississippi. In many 

 places I have seen beds of a quarter of an acre. It is cultivated here and 

 there in gardens. 



