128 
SYLVIA CORONATA. 
gradations of change. While in their brown olive 
dress, the yellow on the sides of the breast and crown 
is scarcely observable, unless the feathers be parted 
with the hand ; but that on the rump is still vivid ; the 
spots of black on the cheek are then also obscured. 
The difference of appearance, however, is so great, that 
we need scarcely wonder that foreigners, who have 
no opportunity of examining the progress of these varia- 
tions, should have concluded them to be two distinct 
species. 
This bird is also a passenger through Pennsylvania. 
Early in October he arrives from the north, in his 
olive dress, and frequents the cedar trees, devouring 
the berries with great avidity. He remains with us 
three or four weeks, and is very numerous wherever 
there are trees of the red cedar covered with berries. 
He leaves us for the south, and spends the winter 
season among the myrtle swamps of Virginia, the 
Carolinas, and Georgia. The berries of the myrica 
cerifera , both the large and dwarf kind, are his parti- 
cular favourites. On those of the latter J found him 
feeding, in great numbers, near the sea shore, in the 
district of Maine, in October ; and through the whole 
of the lower parts of the Carolinas, wherever the myrtles 
grew, these birds were numerous, skipping about, with 
hanging wings, among the bushes. In those parts of 
the country, they are generally known by the name of 
myrtle birds. Round Savannah, and beyond it as far 
as the Alatamaha, I found him equally numerous, as 
late as the middle of March, when his change of colour 
had considerably progressed to the slate hue. Mr 
Abbot, who is well acquainted with this change, assured 
me, that they attain this rich slate colour fully before 
their departure from thence, which is about the last of 
March, and to the 10th of April. About the middle or 
20th of the same month, they appear in Pennsylvania, 
in fail dress; and after continuing to be seen, for a 
week or ten days, skipping among the high branches 
and tops of the trees, after those larvse that feed on the 
opening buds, they disappear until the next October. 
