PINE-CREEPING WARBLER. 
155 
when disturbed, flying up, and clinging to the trunks 
of the trees. As I advanced towards the south, it 
became more numerous. Its note is a simple reiterated 
chirrup, continued for four or five seconds. 
Catesby first figured and described this bird ; but so 
imperfectly, as to produce among succeeding writers 
great confusion, and many mistakes as to what particular 
bird was intended. Edwards has supposed it to he the 
blue winged .yellow warbler ! -Latham has supposed 
another species to be meant ; and the worthy Mr 
Pennant has been led into the same mistakes ; describing 
the male of one species, and the female of another, as 
the male and female pine-creeper. Having shot and 
examined great numbers of these birds, I am enabled 
to clear up these difficulties by the following descrip- 
tions, which will be found to he correct. 
The pine-creeping warbler is five and a half inches 
long, and nine inches in extent ; the whole upper parts 
are of a rich green olive, with a considerable tinge of 
yellow ; throat, sides, and breast, yellow ; wings and 
tail, brown, with a slight cast of bluish, the former 
marked with two bars of white, slightly tinged with 
yellow; tail, forked, and edged with ash; the three 
exterior feathers, marked near the tip with a broad 
spot of white ; middle of the belly and vent-featliers 
white. The female is brown, tinged with olive green 
on the back ; breast, dirty white, or slightly yellowish. 
The hill in both is truly that of a warbler ; and the 
tongue, slender, as in the motacilla genus, notwith- 
standing the habits of the bird. 
The food of these birds is the seeds of the pitch 
pine, and various kinds of bugs. The nest, according 
to Mr Abbot, is suspended from the horizontal fork of 
a branch, and formed outwardly of slips of grape-vino 
bark, rotten wood, and caterpillar’s webs, with some- 
times pieces of hornet’s nests interwoven ; and is lined 
with dry pine leaves, and fine roots of plants. The 
eggs are four, white, with a few dark brown spots at 
the great end. 
These birds, associating in flocks of twenty or thirty 
