115 



BLACK-THROATED BLUE WARBLER. 



SYLVIA CANADENSIS. 

 [Plate XV.— Fig. 7.] 



Motacilla Canadensis, Lini^. Syst. 336. — Le figiiier bleu, Buff. V, 304. PL enl. 685,Jig\ 2. 

 —Lath. Syn. II, p. 487, JVo. 113.— Edw. 25%—Arct. Zool. p. 399, No. 285.— Peale's 

 Museum, JVo. 7222. 



I KNOW little of this bird. It is one of those transient visi- 

 tors that in the month of April pass thro Pennsylvania on its way 

 to the north to breed. It has much of the Flycatcher in its man- 

 ners, tho the form of its bill is decisively that of the Warbler. 

 These birds are occasionally seen for about a week or ten days, 

 viz. from the twenty-fifth of April to the end of the first week in 

 May, I sought for them in the southern states, in winter, but in 

 vain. It is highly probable that they breed in Canada; but the 

 summer residents among the feathered race, on that part of the 

 continent, are little known or attended to. The habits of the bear, 

 the deer and beaver, are much more interesting to those people, 

 and for a good substantial reason too, because more lucrative; and 

 unless there should arrive an order from England for a cargo of 

 skins of Warblers and Flycatchers, sufficient to make them an 

 object worth speculation, we are likely to kliow as little of them 

 hereafter as at present. 



This species is five inches long, and seven and a half broad, 

 and is wholly of a fine light slate color above ; the throat, cheeks, 

 front and upper part of the breast is black; wings and tail dusky 

 black, the primaries marked with a spot of white immediately 

 below their coverts; tail edged with blue; belly and vent white; 

 legs and feet dirty yellow ; bill black, and beset with bristles at 



