364 
WORM-EATING WARBLER. 
of finding these insects. If there be a branch broken, and 
the leaves withered, it shoots among them in preference to 
every other part of the tree, making a great rustling, in search 
of its prey. I have often watched its manoeuvres while thus 
engaged, and flying from tree to tree in search of such places; 
On dissection, I have uniformly found their stomachs filled 
with spiders or caterpillars, or both. Its note is a feeble 
chirp, rarely uttered. 
The Worm-eater is five inches and a quarter in length, 
and eight inches in extent ; back, tail, and wings, a fine clear 
olive ; tips and inner vanes of the wing-quills, a dusky brown ; 
tail, slightly forked, yet the exterior feathers are somewhat 
shorter than the middle ones ; head and whole lower parts, a 
dirty buff ; the former marked with four streaks of black, one 
passing from each nostril, broadening as it descends the hind 
head ; and one from the posterior angle of each eye ; the bill 
is stout, straight, pretty thick at the base, roundish, and 
tapering to a fine point ; no bristles at the side of the mouth ; 
tongue, thin, and lacerated at the tip; the breast is most 
strongly tinged with the orange buff ; vent, waved with dusky 
olive ; bill, blackish above, flesh coloured below' ; legs and feet, 
a pale clay colour ; eye, dark hazel. The female differs very 
little in colour from the male. 
On this species Mr Pennant makes the following remarks : 
— “ Does not appear in Pennsylvania till July, in its passage 
northward. Does not return the same way, but is supposed 
to go beyond the mountains which lie to the west. This 
seems to be the case with all the transient vernal visitants of 
Pennsylvania.”* That a small bird should permit the whole 
spring, and half of the summer, to pass away before it thought 
of 66 passing to the north to breed,” is a circumstance, one 
should think, would have excited the suspicion of so discerning 
a naturalist as the author of Arctic Zoology , as to its truth. I 
do not know that this bird breeds to the northward of the 
*■ Arctic Zoology , p. 406. 
