PROTHONOTARY WARBLER. 
257 
Until recently, naturalists knew nothing more of this species than 
Nuttall put into the above few lines ; and for that information he was 
indebted to Audubon. Only three examples were taken between 
Audubon’s time and 1873, when Nathan C. Brown captured three 
more in Alabama; and eleven years afterwards, in 18S4, William 
Brewster collected fifty specimens in the vicinity of Charleston, 
and published in “ The Auk ” for January, 1885, an interesting 
account of the bird’s habits. 
He reports that he met with this bird in dry, scrubby woods or 
open orange-groves, though it prefers the ranker growth of the 
swamps, to which it appears to be confined during the breeding 
season. Its song is said to be “very loud, very rich, very beau- 
tiful, while it has an indescribable tender quality that thrills the 
senses after the sound has ceased.” 
The distribution of the species has not yet been very satisfac- 
torily determined, but it probably occurs in all the South Atlantic 
and Gulf States, and along the Mississippi valley north to Illinois 
and Indiana. 
PROTHONOTARY WARBLER. 
Protonotaria citrea. 
Char. Head, neck, and under parts golden yellow ; back bright 
olive ; wings, tail, and rump, bluish ash ; inner webs of tail-feathers white. 
Length about inches. 
AVrA On the margin of a stream or pond or in a swamp ; a cavity in 
dead tree, often a deserted nest of Woodpecker or Chickadee, generally 
near the ground ; lined with leaves and moss. 
4"7 (usually 6); white, or with buff tint, thickly spotted with 
brownish red ; 0.70 X 0.55. 
This beautiful species inhabits the Southern States commonly 
in summer, being plentiful in the low, dark, and swampy forests 
of the Mississipin near New Orleans, as well as in Louisiana 
and the wilds of Florida. In these solitary retreats individuals 
are seen nimbly flitting in search of insects, caterpillars, larvae, 
and small land shells, every now and then uttering a few creak- 
ing notes scarcely deserving the name of song. They some- 
times, though very rarely, proceed as far north as Pennsylvania. 
They appear to affect watery places in swamps which abound 
with lagoons, and are seldom seen in the woods. According to 
VOL. I. — 17 
