17 



BLUE YELLOW-BACK WARBLER. 

 SYLVIA PUSILLA. 

 [Plate XXVIIL— Fig. 3.] 



Parus Americanusj Linn. Syst. 341. — Finch Creeper, Catesb. I, 64. — Latham, II, 558. 

 — Creeping Titmouse, Arct. Zool. 423, No. 326. — Parus varius, Various colored little Finch 

 -Creeper, Bartram,j&. 292. — Pe ale's Museum, No. 6910. 



NOTWITHSTANDING the respectability of the above au- 

 thorities, I must continue to consider this bird as a species of 

 Warbler. Its habits indeed partake something of the Titmouse; 

 but the form of its bill is decisively that of the Sylvia genus. It 

 is remarkable for frequenting the tops of the tallest trees, where it 

 feeds on the small winged insects and caterpillars that infest the 

 young leaves and blossoms. It has a few feeble chirrupping notes, 

 scarcely loud enough to be heard at the foot of the tree. It visits 

 Pennsylvania from the south, early in May; is very abundant in 

 the woods of Kentucky; and is also found in the northern parts of 

 the state of New York. Its nest I have never yet met with. 



This little species is four inches and a half long, and six inches 

 and a half in breadth ; the front, and between the bill and eyes, is 

 black; the upper part of the head and neck a fine Prussian blue; 

 upper part of the back brownish yellow, lower and rump pale blue; 

 wings and tail black, the former crossed with two bars of white, 

 and edged w ith blue ; the latter marked on the inner webs of the 

 three exterior feathers with white, a circumstance common to a 

 great number of the genus ; immediately above and below the eye 

 is a small touch of white ; the upper mandible is black, the lower, 

 as well as the whole throat and breast, rich yellow, deepening about 

 its middle to orange red, and marked on tlie throat with a small 



VOL. IV. E 



