232 
SINGIXG BIRDS. 
Other kinds of flies, keeping up a smart snapping of his bill, 
almost similar to the noise made by knocking pebbles together. 
This quaint and indolent ditty I have often heard before in 
the dark and solitary woods of west Pennsylvania; and here, 
as there, it affords an agreeable relief in the dreary silence and 
gloom of the thick forest. This note is very much like the 
call of the Chicadee, and at times both are heard amidst 
the reigning silence of the summer noon. In the whole dis- 
trict of this extensive hill or mountain, in Milton, there ap- 
peared to exist no other pair of these lonely Warblers but the 
present. Another pair, however, had probably a nest in the 
vicinity -of the woods of Mount Auburn in Cambridge, and 
in the spring of the present year (1831) several pairs of these 
birds were seen for a transient period. 
Nuttall was not the only one of the older writers who expressed 
the opinion that this and other species of the family were less 
abundant than more modern observers have found them. Wilson 
and Audubon made similar statements. 
This Warbler is now known to be a common bird throughout 
these Eastern Stales, and may be found, in summer, in any coni- 
ferous forest in Massachusetts, and thence northward to the fur- 
countries and westward to the plains. It breeds also, sparingly, in 
southern New England, northern Ohio, Illinois, etc., and winters 
in the West Indies and Central America. 
* BLACKBURNIAN WARBLER. 
Df.NDROICA ELACKBURNIiE. 
Char. Male : above, black, back streaked with whitish ; sides of head 
black; crown patch, line over eye, and entire throat and breast rich 
■orange or flame color ; belly yellowish white ; sides streaked with black ; 
large white patches on wings ; outer tail-feathers nearly all white. 
Female : similar, but black replaced by grayish brown, and orange by 
dull yellow ; two white wing-bars. I.ength 5X to 5 inches. 
Nest. Usually in coniferous woods, saddled on horizontal limb of pine 
or hemlock, 20 to 40 feet from the ground ; composed of twigs, roots, and 
shreds of bark mixed with vegetable down, lined with feathers, hair, and 
down. 
4 ; white, often tinged with green, spotted, chiefly around larger 
end, with brown and lilac; 0.70 X 0.50. 
