BAY-BREASTED WARBLER. 
247 
BAY-BREASTED WARBLER SYLVIA CASTANEA. 
Plate XIV. Fig. 4. 
Parus peregrinus, The Little Chocolate-breasted Titmouse, JBartram , p. 292. — 
Peale's Museum , No. 731 1. 
SYL VICOLA CASTANEA. — Swajnson. 
Sylvia castanea, JBonap. Synop. p. 81.* 
This very rare species passes through Pennsylvania about 
the beginning of May, and soon disappears. It has many of 
the habits of the Titmouse, and all its activity ; hanging 
among the extremities of the twigs, and darting about from 
place to place, with restless diligence, in search of various 
kinds of the larvae of insects. It is never seen here in sum- 
mer, and very rarely on its return, owing, no doubt, to the 
greater abundance of foliage at that time, and to the silence 
and real scarcity of the species. Of its nest and eggs, we are 
altogether uninformed. 
The length of this bird is five inches, breadth eleven ; throat, 
breast, and sides under the wings, pale chestnut, or bay ; fore- 
head, cheeks, line over and strip through the eye, black ; 
crown, deep chestnut ; lower parts, dull yellowish white ; hind 
head and back, streaked with black, on a grayish buff ground ; 
wings, brownish black, crossed with two bars of white ; tail, 
forked, brownish black, edged with ash, the three exterior 
feathers marked with a spot of white on the inner edges ; 
behind the eye is a broad oblong spot of yellowish white. 
The female has much less of the bay colour on the breast ; 
the black on the forehead is also less, and of a brownish tint. 
The legs and feet, in both, are dark ash, the claws extremely 
sharp for climbing and hanging ; the bill is black ; irides, 
hazel. 
The ornithologists of Europe take no notice of this species, 
and have probably never met with it. Indeed, it is so seldom 
* According to Bonaparte, discovered and first described by Wilson. — Ed. 
