SWAINSON'S SWAMP-WARBLER. 83 



upper scutella blended; toes slender; claws rather long, moderately arched, 

 slender, much compressed, laterally grooved, extremely acute; plumage soft 

 and blended. Bristles obsolete. Wings rather long, somewhat pointed, the 

 outer three nearly equal, the second longest. Tail of moderate length, nearly 

 even. — Name from "Ewe, a swamp, and Naw, to inhabit. 



SWAINSON'S SWAMP-WARBLER. 



-'- Helinaia Swainsonii, Aud. 



PLATE CIV.— Male. 



Shortly after the death of Wilson, one of the wise men of a certain city 

 in the United States, assured the members of a Natural History Society there, 

 that no more birds would be found in the country than had been described 

 by that justly celebrated writer. Had the assertions however been made in 

 the hearing of that ornithologist, he would doubtless at once have refuted the 

 speech of this extraordinary orator, who continued as follows: — "No more 

 Finches, no more Hawks, no more Owls, no more Herons, and certainly no 

 more Pigeons; and as to Water birds, let the list given by Wilson of such 

 as he has not described be filled, and again I say, there will end the American 

 Ornithology." The orator has travelled much, having gone a few miles to 

 the eastward of his own city, and even crossed the Mississippi; but, as he 

 had predicted, he never discovered a bird in all his wanderings. Time 

 passed on, and the orator has dreamed over it; but several industrious 

 students of nature, doubting if all that he had said might really be strictly 

 correct to the letter, have followed in the track of Wilson, have extended 

 their investigations, ransacked the deep recesses of the forests and the great 

 western plains, visited the shores of the Atlantic, ascended our noble streams, 

 and explored our broadest lakes; — and, reader, they have found more new 

 birds than the learned academician probably knew of old ones. Then, be 

 not surprised when I assure you that our Bonapartes, our Nuttalls, our 

 Bachmans, our Coopers, Pickerings, Townsends, Peales, and other 

 zealous naturalists, have very considerably augmented the Fauna of the 

 United States. To the list of these amiable men may be added the names of 

 learned and enterprising Europeans— Parry, Franklin, Richardson, Ross, 



