52 THE YELLOW-POLL WOOD-WARBLER. 



in the season in Massachusetts. The eggs, four or five in number, measure 

 5j eighths in length, by a trifle more than half an inch in breadth; they are 

 of a light, dull bluish-white, thickly sprinkled with dots and small markings 

 of various sizes of dull reddish-brown, accumulated towards the great end." 



The fabric alluded to above may be thus described. A nest of the usual 

 form had been constructed, of which the external diameter was three inches. 

 It is composed of cotton rudely interwoven with flaxen fibres of plants, and 

 lined with cotton of a reddish colour, with some hairs round the inner edges. 

 The egg of the Cowbird having been deposited in this nest, another of a 

 larger size, three inches and three-quarters in external diameter, has been 

 built upon it, being formed of the same materials, but with less of the flaxen 

 fibres. The egg is thus surmounted by a layer three-quarters of an inch 

 thick, and was discovered by opening the lower nest from beneath. It is 

 agglutinated to the lining of the nest, having been addled and probably burst. 

 In this second nest a Cowbird had also deposited an egg, which was, in like 

 manner, covered over by a third nest, composed of the same materials, and 

 of nearly the same size as the second. 



The birds represented in the thirty-fifth plate of my. large work, and dedi- 

 cated to Mr. Children, I have since found to be the young of this bird, pro- 

 bably of a late brood of the previous year, they having been found breeding 

 at a period when this species shews few or none of the reddish spots on the 

 breast, the want of which induced me to consider them as of a distinct spe- 

 cies. These circumstances I mentioned to the Prince of Musignano, in Lon- 

 don, my friend Dr. Bachman and myself having discovered the error soon 

 after the publication of my first volume of Ornithological Biography. 



I made my drawing of this species near Natchez, and having killed the 

 specimen while it was searching for insects among the flowers of a large 

 climbing plant, I have figured part of the latter also. This plant I have 

 never seen, excepting in low, damp or marshy places. It there runs over 

 decayed trees, spreading in the form of a bower, and hanging in graceful fes- 

 toons. The long pendulous clusters of pale purple flowers are destitute of 

 odour. 



All our little birds known by the name of Warblers, and referred by 

 authors to the genera Sylvieola, Trichas. and Vcrmivora, present the same 

 structure in their digestive and respiratory organs. Their oesophagus is 

 rather narrow, without dilatation; the provcntriculus bulbiform, with nume- 

 rous oblong glandules; the stomach rather small, oblique, elliptical or round- 

 ish, with the lateral muscles distinct, but of moderate thickness, the lower 

 muscle thin, the epithelium dense, reddish-brown, and longitudinally rugous 

 when not filled; the intestine rather short and of moderate width; two very 

 small cocca; the rectum gradually enlarged. The trachea is composed of 



