MARYLAND YELLOW-THROAT. 



MARYLAND YELLOW-THROAT. {Sylvia 



Marilandica .) 



PLATE VI.— Fig. 1. 



Turdus trichas, Linn. Syst, i. 293. — Edw. 237.— Yellow-breasted Warbler, Arct. 

 Zool. ii. No. 283. Id. 284. — Le Figuier aux joues noires, Buff. v. 292. — 

 La Fauvette a poitrine jaune de la Louisiane, Buff. v. 162. PI. enl. 709, fig. 

 2.— Lath. Syn. iv. 433, 32.— Peale's Museum, No. 6902. 



TRICHUS PERSONATUS—Swaixsox* 



Trichas personatus, Swain. Zool. Journ. No. 10, p. 167. — The Yellow-breasted 

 "Warbler, or Maryland Yellow-throat, Aud. i. pi. 23, p. 121. 



This is one of the humble inhabitants of briers, brambles, 

 alder bushes, and such shrubbery as grow most luxuriantly 

 in low, watery situations ; and might with propriety be deno- 

 minated Humility, its business or ambition seldom leading it 



* Mr Swainson has formed from this species his genus Trichas, and 

 bestowed upon it the new and appropriate name of person atvs, or masked. 

 Marilandica of Brisson and Wilson could scarcely be retained, Trichas 

 of Linnaeus having the priority. The latter is now converted into a 

 generic term ; and as the species does not seem entirely confined to 

 Maryland, another and more appropriate than either will perhaps make 

 less confusion than the attempts to restore some old one. Mr Swainson 

 makes the following remarks upon the genus : — " This form is intimately 

 connected with Synalaxis, and two or three other groups peculiar to 

 Africa and Australia. Feebleness of flight and strength of foot separate 

 these birds from the typical genera ; while the strength and curvature 

 of the hind claw forbid us to associate them with the true Motacillo?." 



The female is figured on Plate XVIII. of this volume, where it is 

 mentioned as one of the birds whose nest the cow bunting selects to 

 deposit her eggs in. " The nest," according to Mr Audubon, " is placed 

 on the ground, and partly sunk in it : it is now and then covered over 

 in the form of an oven, from which circumstance children name this 

 warbler the oven-bird. It is composed externally of withered leaves and 

 grass, and is lined with hair. The eggs are from four to six, of a white 

 colour, spreckled with light brown, and are deposited about the middle 

 of May. Sometimes two broods are reared in a season. I have never 

 observed the egg of the cow bunting in the nests of the second brood." 



The male birds do not attain their full plumage until the second 

 spring.— Ed. 



