274 PALM WARBLER. 
of Bimbelé, by which it is known among the negroes of those 
countries, is derived from the recollection of an African bird, 
to which, probably, the resemblance is not more evident. Un- 
fortunately, this propensity of limited minds to refer new ob- 
jects, however distinct, to those with which they are acquainted, 
seems to have prevailed throughout the world, and is found 
exemplified nowhere more absurdly than in the Anglo-Amer- 
ican names of plants and animals. 
The food of this little warbler consists chiefly of fruits and 
small seeds. Its song is limited to five or six notes; but 
though neither brilliant nor varied, it is highly agreeable, the 
tones being full, soft, and mellow. While other birds of its 
kind build in thickets and humble situations, this proud little 
creature is said always to select the very lofty tree from which 
it takes its name, the palmist (a species of palm), and to place 
its nest in the top, in the sort of hive formed at the base or 
insertion of the peduncle which sustains the clusters of fruit. 
Such are the facts we have gathered from authors; but as 
the singular description of the nest coincides exactly with the 
manner of building of the Tanagra Dominica, and as, more- 
over, the palm warbler appears not to be known in its gayer 
vesture in the West Indies, we cannot easily believe that it 
breeds elsewhere than where we have stated—that is, in the 
temperate, and even colder regions of America—and that what 
has been mistaken for its nest in reality belongs to the above- 
named, or some other bird. 
The first accounts of this species were given, as we have 
already stated, by Buffon, and from him subsequent writers 
appear to have copied what they relate of it. The bird which 
he described must have been a very young specimen, as its 
colours are very dull, much more so than the one figured and 
described by Vieillot, who supposes, though erroneously, Buf- 
fon’s specimen to have been a female. Even Vieillot’s, which 
is certainly our species in its winter dress, is much duller in 
colour than those we received from Florida ; and these again 
are far less brilliant than the bird in our plate, represented as 

