121 



YELLOW RUMP. 

 SYLVIA COliOKATA, 

 [Plate XLV.^Fig. 3.] 



Edwards, 255,— ^rc^. Zoo/, II, j&. 400, Ab. 288. 



I MUST again refer the reader to the second volume of Ame- 

 rican Ornithology, plate 17, fig. 4, for this bird in his pei'fect co- 

 lors ; the present figure exhibits him in his winter dress, as he ar- 

 rives to us from the north early in September; the former shews 

 him in his spring and summer dress, as he visits us from the south 

 about the twentieth of March. These birds remain with us in Penn- 

 sylvania from September until the season becomes severely cold, 

 feeding on the berries of the red cedar; and as December's snows 

 come on they retreat to the lower countries of the southern states, 

 where in February I found them in great numbers among the myr- 

 tles, feeding on the berries of that shrub; from which circumstance 

 they are usually called in that quarter Myrtle birds. Theii- breed- 

 ing place I suspect to be in our northern districts, among the 

 swamps and evergreens so abundant there, having myself shot 

 them in the Great Pine swamp about the middle of May. 



They range along our whole Atlantic coast in winter, seem- 

 ing particularly fond of the red cedar and the myrtle; and I have 

 found them numerous, in October, on the low islands along the 

 coast of New Jersey in the same pursuit. They also dart after 

 flies wherever they can see them, generally skipping about with 

 the wings loose. 



Length five inches and a quarter, extent eight inches ; upper 

 parts and sides of the neck a dark mouse brown, obscurely streak- 

 yoL, V. H h 



