' THE BLUE YELLOW-BACKED WOOD-WARBLER. 57 



Male, 4|, Si 



From Texas northward. Very abundant. Spends the winter in all the 

 Southern States. 



THE BLUE YELLOW-BACKED WOOD- WARBLER. 



-hSYLVICOLA AMERICANA, Lath. 



PLATE XCL— Male and Female. 



This pretty species enters Louisiana from the south as early as spring 

 appears, at the period when most insects are found closer to the ground, and 

 more about water-courses, than shortly after, when a warmer sun has invited 

 every leaf and blossom to hail the approach of that season when they all 

 become as brilliant as nature intended them to be. The little fellow under 

 your eye is then seen flitting over damp places, such as the edges of ponds, 

 lakes, and rivers, chasing its prey with as much activity and liveliness as 

 any other of the delicate and interesting tribe /to which it belongs. It alights 

 on every plant in its way, runs up and down it, picks here and there a small 

 winged insect, and should one, aware of its approach, fly off, pursues it and 

 snatches it in an instant. 



I have placed a pair of these Warblers on a handsome species of Iris. 

 This plant grows in the water, and in the neighbourhood of New Orleans, a 

 few miles below that city, where I found it abundantly, and in bloom, in the 

 beginning of April. Several flowers are produced upon the same stem. I 

 have not met with it anywhere else, and the name of Louisiana Flag is the 

 one commonly given it. 



As soon as the foliage of the forests begins to expand, the Blue Yellow- 

 backed Warbler flies to the tops of the trees, and there remains during the 

 season, gleaning amongst the leaves and branches, in the same active manner 

 as it employed when nearer the ground, not leaving off its quick and short 

 pursuit of small insects on the wing. When on the branches, it frequently 

 raises its body (which is scarcely larger when stripped of its feathers than 

 the first joint of a man's finger) upwards to the full length of its legs and 

 toes, and is thus enabled to seize insects otherwise beyond its reach. 



Its flight is that of a true Sylvia. It ascends for awhile in a very zigzag 



Vol. II. 9 



