26 



AUDUBON'S WOOD-WARBLER. 



-f Sylvicola Audubonii, Toicnsend. 

 PLATE LXXVIL— Male and Female. 



This species, so very intimately allied to Sylvia coronata, that an observer 

 might readily mistake the one for the other, was discovered by Mr. Town- 

 send, who has done me the honour of naming it after me. He states, that 

 "the Chinook Indians know it by the name of 'Fout-sahf and that it is very 

 numerous about the Columbia River, arriving there in the middle of March, 

 and remaining to breed, but disappearing in the end of June. In the begin- 

 ning of October it is again seen, with its plumage renewed. Its voice so 

 nearly resembles that of the Chestnut-sided Warbler as to render it difficult 

 to distinguish them. It keeps in the most impervious thickets, and is always 

 silent when engaged in seeking its food." Mr. Nuttall has favoured me 

 with the following animated account of it. 



"This elegant species, one of the beautiful and ever-welcome harbingers of 

 approaching summer, we found about the middle of April, accompanying its 

 kindred troop of Warblers, enlivening the dark and dreary wilds of the 

 Oregon. The leaves of the few deciduous trees were now opening rapidly 

 to the balmy influence of the advancing spring, and flowers but rarely seen 

 even by the botanist, sent forth their delicious fragrance, and robed in beauty 

 the shady forests and grassy savannahs. But nothing contributes so much 

 life to the scene as the arrival of those seraphic birds, the Thrushes and 

 Warblers, which, uniting in one wild and ecstatic chorus of delight, seemed 

 to portray, however transiently, the real rather than the imaginary pleasures 

 of paradise. Nor in those sad and distant wilds were the notes of the gilded 

 messenger of summer [Sylvia xstiva) the less agreeable'that I had heard 

 them a thousand times before. The harmonies of Nature are not made to 

 tire, but to refresh the best feelings of the mind, to recall the past, and make 

 us dwell with delight upon that which best deserves our recollection. But 

 what was my surprise to hear the accustomed note of the Summer Yellow- 

 Bird delivered in an improved state by this new Warbler, clad in a robe so 

 different but yet so beautiful. Like that species, also he was destined to 

 become our summer acquaintance, breeding and rearing his offspring in the 

 shady firs by the borders of the prairie openings, where he could at all times 

 easily obtain a supply of insects or their larvae. On the Sth of June the 



