58 
TIIE BLUE YELLOW-BACKED WOOD-WARBLER. 
manner, and returns suddenly to nearly the same place, as if afraid to 
encounter the dangers of a prolonged excursion. I do not think it ever 
flies to the ground. It hops sideways as well as straight forward, hangs 
like a Titmouse, and searches the cups of even the smallest flowers for its 
favourite insects. 
I am inclined to think that it raises two broods in a season, having seen 
and shot the young on the trees, in Louisiana, early in May, and again in 
the beginning of July. The nest is small, formed of lichens, beautifully 
arranged on the outside, and lined with the cottony substances found on the 
edges of different mosses. It is placed in the fork of a small twig, and so far 
towards the extremity of the branches as to have forced me to cut them ten 
or fifteen feet from it, to procure one. On drawing in the branch carefully 
to secure the nest, the male and female always flew towards me, exhibiting 
all the rage and animosity befitting the occasion. The eggs are pure white, 
with a few reddish dots at the larger end, and were in two instances four 
in number. It was several years before I discovered one of these nests, 
so small are they, and so difficult to be seen from the ground. 
This species is found throughout the United States, and may be considered 
as one of the most beautiful of the birds of our country. It has no song, but 
merely a soft, greatly prolonged twitter, repeated at short intervals. It 
returns southward, out of the Union, in the beginning of October. 
Blue Yellow-bacic Warbler, Sylvia pusilla, Wils. Amer. Orn., vol. iv. p. 1*7. 
Sylvia Americana, Bonap. Syn., p. 33. 
Blue Yellow-backed Warbler, Sylvia Americana , And. Orn. Biog., vol. i. p. *78. 
Bill much attenuated ; outer three quills nearly equal, first or second 
longest ; tail almost even, with the feathers pointed. Male with the upper 
parts light blue, the fore part of the back yellowish-green ; two broad bands 
of white on the wing, formed by the tips of the secondary coverts, and first 
row of small coverts ; quills and tail-feathers dusky, margined with blue ; a 
white spot on the outer three of the latter ; loral space black; both eyelids 
with a white spot ; throat yellow, with whitish patches, a lunular band of 
blackish on the fore neck ; breast yellow, spotted with dull orange, the rest 
of the lower parts yellowish, fading into white ; the sides pale greyish-blue. 
Female similar but paler ; the loral band wanting ; throat, fore neck, and 
breast yellow, without the black lunule. 
Although the bill of this species is much attenuated, it is not essentially 
different in form from that of S. Blackburnice , and others of this genus ; the 
wings are similar to those of the rest, and there seems no reason for setting 
it apart to form a genus, as has been done by Bonaparte. 
Male, 4£, 6^. <• 
