26 
AUDUBON’S WOOD-WARBLER. 
Sylvicola Audubonii, Townsend. 
PLATE LXXVII. — Male and Female. 
This species, so very intimately allied to Sylvia coronaia, that an observer 
might readily mistake the one for the other, was discovered by Mr. Town- 
send, who has done me the honour of naming it after me. He states, that 
“ the Chinook Indians know it by the name of ‘ Fout-sah ,’ and that it is very 
numerous about the Columbia river, arriving there in the middle of March, 
and remaining to breed, but disappearing in the end of June. In the begin- 
ning of October it is again seen, with its plumage renewed. Its voice so 
nearly resembles that of the Chestnut-sided Warbler as to render it difficult 
to distinguish them. It keeps in the most impervious thickets, and is 
always silent when engaged in seeking its food.” Mr. Nuttall has favoured 
me with the following animated account of it. 
“ This elegant species, one of the beautiful and ever-welcome harbingers of 
approaching summer, we found about the middle of April, accompanying its 
kindred troop of Warblers, enlivening the dark and dreary wilds of the 
Oregon. The leaves of the few deciduous trees were now opening rapidly 
to the balmy influence of the advancing spring, and flowers but rarely seen 
even by the botanist, sent forth their delicious fragrance, and robed in beauty 
the shady forests and grassy savannahs. But nothing contributes so much 
life to the scene as the arrival of those seraphic birds, the Thrushes and 
Warblers, which, uniting in one wild and ecstatic chorus of delight, seemed 
to portray, however transiently, the real rather than the imaginary pleasures 
of paradise. Nor in those sad and distant wilds were the notes of the gilded 
messenger of summer ( Sylvia cestiva) the less agreeable that I had heard 
them a thousand times before. The harmonies of Nature are not made to 
tire, but to refresh the best feelings of the mind, to recall the past, and make 
us dwell with delight upon that which best deserves our recollection. But 
what was my surprise to hear the accustomed note of the Summer Yellow- 
bird delivered in an improved state by this new Warbler, clad in a robe so 
different but yet so beautiful. Like that species, also, he was destined to 
become our summer acquaintance, breeding and rearing his offspring in the 
shady firs by the borders of the prairie openings, where he could at all times 
easily obtain a supply of insects or their larvas. On the 8th of June the 
