GOLDEN-WINGED SWAMP-WARBLER. 91 



narrow feathers. Bill brownish-black. Iris hazel. Feet and claws greyish- 

 blue. Head all round, neck and under parts generally, of a bright rich pure 

 yellow, paler on the abdomen, and passing into white on the under tail- 

 coverts. Fore part of the back and lesser wing-coverts yellowish-green. 

 Lower back and wings light greyish-blue. Inner webs of the quills blackish. 

 Inner webs of the tail-feathers bluish-grey at the base, then white to near 

 the tip, which is black, as well as the outer webs. The two middle feathers 

 blackish, tinged with greyish-blue. 



Length 5 J inches, extent of wings 8j; beak along the ridge ^, along the 

 gap f; tarsus \}. 



Adult Female. 



The differences which the female exhibits are so slight as scarcely to be 

 describable, the tints being merely a little duller. 



GOLDEN-WINGED SWAMP-WARBLER. 



-f-HJELINAIA CHRYSOPTERA, Linn. 



PLATE CVIL— Male and Female. 



Although I have met with this species entering the United States from 

 the Texas in the month of April, and have procured several specimens in 

 Kentucky and Louisiana, as well as a single one in New Jersey, I never had 

 the good fortune to find its nest. When it first makes its appearance in 

 Louisiana or Kentucky, it usually resorts to the higher branches of trees, 

 where, amid the opening leaflets and blossoms, it actively searches for its 

 insect food, occasionally following its prey on wing to some distance, and 

 moving by short leaps among the twigs, in the manner of Helinaia car- 

 bonata, which, in its elongated and slender shape, it in some measure 

 resembles. The flight of this species is, unlike that of the Cape May 

 Warbler, Sylvicola maritima, elevated, swift, and irregularly undulated, 

 until it is about to alight, when it dives toward the spot selected by it, as most 

 Warblers are wont to do. I never saw a bird of this species in autumn, and 

 therefore infer that its southward journey must be accomplished in a very 

 secret and careful manner, or by night. A male and a female are figured in 

 their perfect spring plumage. 



