GNATCATCHER, | P17 
Sub-family POLIOPTILIN A. GnaroarcHers. 
Tarsi scutellate. Wing not longer than the rounded tail. 
GENUS POLIOPTILA. Sclater. 
Bill attenuated, nearly as long as the head, depressed at base; rictus well bristled. 
’ Tarsi longer than middle toe; toes small, outer lateral longer than inner. Tail grad- 
uated, the feathers rounded at tip. 
PoLIOPTILA CH :ULEA (L.) Sel. 
Wlue-Gray Gnatcatcher. 
Sylvia corulea, KIRTLAND, Obiv Geolog. Surv., 1833, 163. 
Sylvania cerulea, NUTTALL, Man., 2nd Ed., i, 1840, 337.—Rwap, Fam. Visitor, iii, 1803, 367 ; 
Philad. Acad. Nat. Sei., vi, 1853, 395. 
view, I am induced to offer for the pages of the Journal of Science, the following ex- 
tracts from my notes and memorandums, made during the last three years. 
A flock of Bohemian wax-chatterers (Bombycilla garrula,) consisting of fifty or sixty 
individuals, was frequently seen ip a warsh at the old mouth of the Cuyahoga river, near 
the city of Cleveland during the month of March of the present year. They were usually 
engaged in feeding on the pulps and seeds of the swamp rose, and as they were mistaken 
by the sportsmen for the common cherry bird (B. Gey olnenie) they were permitted to 
pursue their occupation without interruption. 
I procured a fine specimen which is preserved in my cabinet; another isin the cab- 
inet of Prof. Ackley of this city. 
We believe this to be the first instance in which this bird has been taken within 
the United States, or has been known to visit us in any considerable numbers; though 
we learn from the appeudix to Nuttall’s Ornithology, and also from Peabody’s Report on 
the Birds of Massachusetts, that the younger Audubon once pursued an individual of 
this species in that State. 
Nuttall says, “‘the wax-chatterer, hitherto in America, seen only in the vicinity of 
the Athabas¢a river, near the region of the Rocky mcuntains in the month of March, is 
of common occurance as a passenger throughout the colder regions of the whole northern 
hemisphere. In spring and late in autumn they visit Northern Asia or Siberia and 
Eastern Europe in vast numbers, but elsewhere are only uncertain stragglers. 
Their size, markings, and habits readily distinguish them from the cherry or cedar 
bird. Justice is by ne means done to their colors and beauty of form, in the figure 
given of the species by Bonaparte, in the third volume of his American Ornithology. 
An hyperborean phalarope (Phalaropus hyperboreus) was shot on Lake Hrie, near the 
pier of Cleveland harbor, last November, by a young man in my employment, while pur- 
suing a wounded gull. 
The phalarupe was a young bird in winter plumage. It is preserved in my cabinet. 
Little could be learned of its habits. It was a solitary individual, and when first dis- 
covered was resting on the water, where it seeswed to be as much at home as any of the 
gulls with which it was associating. 
The yellow throated gray warbler (Sylvia pensilis) must be considered not a rare an- 
nual visitor, even to the northern parts of Ohio, though Mr. Anduben informs his readers 
that ‘‘ they confine themselves to the southern States, seldom moving further towards 
the middle district than North Carolina,” and ‘‘do not ascend the Mississippi further 
