256 
BLUE- WINGED YELLOW WARBLER. 
have long excelled in the practice of this sport; which is 
indeed better suited to an open country than to one covered 
with forest. Though once so honourable and so universal, it 
is now much disused in Europe, and in Britain is nearly 
extinct. Yet I cannot but consider it as a much more noble 
and princely amusement than horse-racing and cock-fighting, 
cultivated in certain states with so much care; or even than 
pugilism, which is still so highly patronized in some of those 
enlightened countries. 
BLUE-WINGED YELLOW WARBLER. — SYLVIA 
SOLITARIA Plate XV. Fig. 4. 
Parus aureus alis coeruleis, Bartram, p. 292 Edw. pi. 277, upper figure. — Pine 
Warbler, Arct. Zool. p. 412, No. 318 Peak's Museum , No. 7307. 
VERMIVORA SOLITARIA. — Swainson. 
Sylvia solitaria, Bonap. Si/nop. p. 87. — The Blue-winged Yellow Warbler, Aud. 
pi. 20, Orn. Biog. i. 102. 
This bird has been mistaken for the Pine Creeper of 
Catesby. It is a very different species. It comes to us early 
in May from the south; haunts thickets and shrubberies, 
searching the branches for insects ; is fond of visiting gardens, 
orchards, and willow trees, of gleaning among blossoms, and 
currant bushes ; and is frequently found in very sequestered 
woods, where it generally builds its nest. This is fixed in a 
thick bunch, or tussock of long grass, sometimes sheltered by 
a brier bush. It is built in the form of an inverted cone, or 
funnel, the bottom thickly bedded with dry beech leaves, the 
sides formed of the dry bark of strong weeds, lined within 
with fine dry grass. These materials are not placed in the 
usual manner, circularly, but shelving downwards on all sides 
from the top ; the mouth being wide, the bottom very narrow, 
filled with leaves, and the eggs or young occupying the 
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