16 
PALM WARBLER. 
distinct, to those with which they are acquainted, seems to have 
prevailed throughout the world, and is found exemplified no where 
more absurdly than in the Anglo-American names of plants and 
animals. 
The food of this little Warbler, consists chiefly of fruits and 
small seeds. Its song is limited to five or six notes; but though 
neither brilliant nor varied, it is highly agreeable, the tones 
being full, soft, and mellow. While other birds of its kind build 
in thickets and humble situations, this proud little creature is said 
always to select the very lofty tree from which it takes its name, 
the Palmist, (a species of Palm) and to place its nest in the top, in 
the sort of hive formed at the base or insertion of the peduncle 
which sustains the clusters of fruit. 
Such are the facts we have gathered from authors; but as the 
singular description of the nest coincides exactly with the manner 
of building of the Tanagra dominica, and as moreover the Palm 
Warbler appears not to be known in its gayer vesture in the West 
Indies, we cannot easily believe that it breeds elsewhere than 
where we have stated; that is, in the temperate, and even colder 
regions of America, and that what has been mistaken for its nest, 
in reality belongs to the above named, or some other bird. 
The first accounts of this species were given, as we have 
already stated, by Buffon, and from him subsequent writers appear 
to have copied what they relate of it. The bird which he described 
must have been a very young specimen, as its colours are very 
dull, much more so than the one figured and described by Vieillot, 
who supposes, though erroneously, Buflfon’s specimen to have been 
a Female. Even Vieillot’s, which is certainly our species in its 
winter dress, is much duller in colour than those we received 
from Florida; and these again are far less brilliant than the bird 
in our plate, represented as it appears for a few days in the spring 
in Pennsylvania and New-Jersey, and is found throughout summer 
