The pair of singularly marked Warblers which I describe below, were shot on the 21st and 24th of January at Crabpond. That the male in summer plumage would be much more brilliant than my specimen, I have no doubt, for the latter is inferior to the female, and the patched character of the plumage indicates that a seasonal change was then proceeding. If it has been described in its nuptial livery I have failed to recognise it. The male, which was the first obtained, was hopping about the mangroves, which are abundant at the marshy place named, from the summits down to the very surface of the water; and the female was one of a pair that were toying, and chasing each other through the branches of the same trees. At this time, the ovary was scarcely developed, the ova being distinguishable only with a lens. The stomach, in each case, was filled with a black mass of insects.
RED-BACKED WARBLER.[40]
Prairie Warbler.—Wils.
Sylvicola discolor.
| Sylvia discolor, | Vieill.—Aud. pl. 14. |
| Sylvia minuta, | Wils. |
[40] Length 4¾ inches, expanse 7, flexure 2³⁄₁₀, tail 1⁹⁄₁₀, rictus ¹¹⁄₂₀, tarsus ¾, middle toe ⁵⁄₁₀.
It is before the fierce heat of summer has begun to abate in the prairies of the west, that this little bird seeks its winter quarters. On the 18th of August I first met with it, on which day I shot two in different localities. One was hopping hurriedly about low bushes, and herbaceous weeds, not a foot from the ground, examining every stalk and twig, as it proceeded regularly but rapidly along the road-side, for insects. The other was differently engaged. It flew from a bush by the way-side as far as the middle of the road, when hovering in the air a few feet from the ground, it fluttered and turned hither and thither, and then flew back to nearly the same spot as that whence it had started. In a second or two it performed exactly the same manœuvres again; and then a third time, preventing, by the irregularity of its contortions, my taking aim at it, for some time. I have no doubt it was capturing some of the minute dipterous flies which were floating in the declining sun, in numerous swarms; but in a manner not usual with the Warblers. The stomach, in each specimen, was full of small fragments of insects. From that period to April, on the 11th of which month I last saw it, it was a very common resident in the bushes and low woods.
Wilson describes the markings of the female as less vivid than those of the male; but two of that sex, which I shot in January, were in no respect inferior to the brightest males. Some have the red spots of the back almost, or even quite, obliterated; but this is not a sexual distinction.