Plumage soft, blended, with little gloss, excepting on the head. Wings rather short, broad, the second primary longest. Tail short, broad, even, of twelve rounded feathers.
Bill black, pale blue at the base of the lower mandible. Iris dark brown. Feet brown. The upper part of the head and the hind neck deep black, glossed with blue, that colour curving down on either side of the neck at its base. The back, wing, and tail-coverts, and middle feathers of the tail, light greyish-blue. Quills black, edged with bluish-grey; three lateral tail feathers black, with a broad band of white near the end, the rest black, excepting the middle ones. The sides of the head, space above the eye, fore neck and breast white; abdomen and lower tail-coverts brownish-red, with white tips; under wing-coverts black.
Length 5¼ inches, extent of wings 11; bill along the ridge 8⁄12, along the gap 10⁄12; tarsus 8⁄12, middle toe 10⁄12.
Adult Female. Plate CLII. Fig. 2, 2.
The female resembles the male.
THE YELLOW-RUMP WARBLER.
Sylvia coronata, Lath.
PLATE CLIII. Male and Young.
This very abundant species I observed in East Florida, on the 1st of March 1831, in full summer plumage. In South Carolina, no improvement on its winter dress could be seen on the 18th of the same month. On the 10th of April, many were procured by my friend Bachman and myself, in the neighbourhood of Charleston. They were in moult, especially about the head and neck, where the new feathers were still inclosed in their sheath; but so rapidly did the change take place, that, before a few days had elapsed, they were in full plumage.
During a winter spent in the Floridas, I saw these birds daily, and so had abundant opportunity of studying their manners. They were very social among themselves, skipped by day along the piazzas, balanced themselves in the air, opposite the sides of the houses, in search of spiders and insects, rambled among the low bushes of the gardens, and often dived among the large cabbage-leaves, where they searched for worms and larvæ. At night they roosted on the branches of the orange trees, in the luxuriant groves so abundant in that country. Frequently, in the early part of warm mornings, I saw flocks of them fly off to sea until they were out of sight, and again observed their return to land about an hour after. This circumstance I considered as indicative of their desire to migrate, and as shewing that their journeys are performed by day.
In the beginning of May, I found them so abundant in Maine, that the skirts of the woods seemed alive with them. They appeared to be merely waiting for warmer weather, that they might resume their journey northwards. As we advanced towards Labrador, I observed them at every place where we happened to land. They were plentiful in the Magdaleine Islands; and when we landed on the Labrador coast, they were among the first birds observed by our party.