KENTUCKY WARBLER. 



373 



and eight inches in extent ; the back, rump, and tail-coverts 

 are of a rich yellow olive ; lesser wing-coverts, the same ; wings, 

 deep dusky, edged broadly with yellow olive; tail, forked, 

 olive, relieved with dusky ; cheeks and upper part of the 

 head, inclining to light bluish, and tinged with olive ; line 

 from the nostrils over the eye, pale yellow, fading into white ; 

 throat and breast, pale cream colour ; belly and vent, white ; 

 legs, purplish brown ; bill, pointed, and thicker at the base 

 than those of the Sylvia genus generally are ; upper mandible, 

 dark dusky ; lower, somewhat paler ; eye, hazel. 



The female differs little, in the colour of her plumage, from 

 the male ; the yellow line over the eye is more obscure, and 

 the olive not of so rich a tint. 



KENTUCKY WARBLER. {Sylvia formosa.) 



PLATE XXV.— Fig. 3. 



PeaWs Museum, No. 7786. 

 SYLVICOLA? FORMOSA.— Jardine. 



Sylvia formosa, Bonap. Synop. p. 84. — The Kentucky "Warbler, Aud. pi. 38, male 

 and female ; Orn. Biog. i. p. 196. 



This new and beautiful species inhabits the country whose 

 name it bears. It is also found generally in all the intermediate 

 tracts between Nashville and New Orleans, and below that 

 as far as the Balize, or mouths of the Mississippi ; where I 

 heard it several times twittering among the high rank grass 

 and low bushes of those solitary and desolate-looking morasses. 

 In Kentucky and Tennesee it is particularly numerous, fre- 

 quenting low, damp woods, and builds its nest in the middle 

 of a thick tuft of rank grass, sometimes in the fork of a low 

 bush, and sometimes on the ground ; in all of which situations 

 I have found it. The materials are loose dry grass, mixed 

 with the light pith of weeds, and lined with hair. The female 

 lays four, and sometimes six eggs, pure white, sprinkled with 



