256 BLUE-WINGED YELLOW WARBLER. 



originated, have long excelled in the practice of this sport ; 

 which is indeed better suited to an open country than to one 

 covered with forest. Though once so honourable and so 

 universal, it is now much disused in Europe, and in Britain 

 is nearly extinct. Yet I cannot but consider it as a much 

 more noble and princely amusement than horse-racing and 

 cock-fighting, cultivated in certain States with so much care ; 

 or even than pugilism, which is still so highly patronised in 

 some of those enlightened countries. 



BLUE-WINGED YELLOW WARBLER. (Sylvia 

 solitaria.) 



PLATE XV.— Fig. 4. 



Parus aureus alis coeruleis, Bartram, p. 292.— Edw. pi. 277, upper figure. — Pine 

 Warbler, Arct. Zool. p. 412, No. 318.— Peak's Museum, No. 7307. 



VERMIVOEA SOLITARIA.— Swainson. 



Sylvia solitaria, Bonap. Synop. p. 87. — The Blue-winged Yellow Warbler, 

 Aud. pi. 20, Orn. Biog. i. 102. 



This bird has been mistaken for the pine creeper of Catesby. 

 It is a very different species. It comes to us early in May 

 from the south ; haunts thickets and shrubberies, searching 

 the branches for insects ; is fond of visiting gardens, orchards, 

 and willow trees, of gleaning among blossoms and currant 

 bushes; and is frequently found in very sequestered woods, 

 where it generally builds its nest. This is fixed in a thick 

 bunch or tussock of long grass, sometimes sheltered by a 

 brier bush. It is built in the form of an inverted cone or 

 funnel, the bottom thickly bedded with dry beech leaves, the 

 sides formed of the dry bark of strong weeds, lined within 

 with fine dry grass. These materials are not placed in the 

 usual manner, circularly, but shelving downwards on all sides 

 from the top ; the mouth being wide, the bottom very narrow, 

 filled with leaves, and the eggs or young occupying the 



