97 



BAY-BREASTED WARBLER. 

 SYLVIA CASTANEA. 

 [Plate XIV.— Fig. 4.] 



Pants peregrinus^ the Little Chocolate-breasted Titmouse^ Bartram, j&. 292. — -Peale's 



Museum, No. 7311. 



THIS very rare species passes thro Pennsylvania about the 

 beginning of May, and soon disappears. It has many of the habits 

 of the Titmouse, and all their activity; hanging among the ex- 

 tremity of the twigs, and darting about from place to place, with 

 restless diligence, in search of various kinds of the larvae of insects. 

 It is never seen here in summer, and very rarely on its return, 

 owing, no doubt, to the greater abundance of foliage at that time, 

 and to the silence and real scarcity of the species. Of its nest and 

 eggs we are altogether uninformed. 



The length of this bird is five inches, breadth eleven ; throat, 

 breast, and sides under the wings, pale chesnut or bay; forehead, 

 cheeks, line over, and strip thro the eye, black; crown deep ches- 

 nut; lower parts dull yellowish white; hind head and back streak- 

 ed with black on a greyish bulF ground; wings brownish black, 

 crossed with two bars of white; tail forked, brownish black, edged 

 with ash, the three exterior feathers marked with a spot of white 

 on their inner edges; behind the eye is a broad oblong spot of 

 yellowish white. The female has much less of the bay color on 

 the breast; the black on the forehead is also less and of a brownish 

 tint. The legs and feet, in both, are dark ash, the claws extremely 

 sharp for climbing and hanging; the bill is black; irides hazel. 



The ornithologists of Europe take no notice of this species, 

 and have probably never met with it. Indeed it is so seldom seen 



VOL. II. B b 



