Sir John Richardson found this Warbler as common and as familiar as the D. æstiva on the Saskatchewan, and greatly resembling it in habits, though gifted with a much more varied and agreeable song.
Mr. Kennicott met this Warbler on Great Slave Lake, June 12, 1860, where he obtained a female, nest, and five eggs. The nest, loosely built, was placed in a small spruce about two feet from the ground, and in thick woods. The bird was rather bold, coming to her nest while he stood by it. This nest was only one and a half inches deep, with a diameter of three and a half inches; the cavity only one inch deep, with a diameter of two and a half inches. It was made almost entirely of fine stems of plants and slender grasses, and a few mosses. The cavity was lined with finer stems, and fine black roots of herbaceous plants.
The eggs of this Warbler are, in shape, a rounded oval, one end being but
slightly more pointed than the other. They measure .62 of an inch in length and .49 in breadth. Their ground-color is a light ashen hue, or a dull white, and this is more or less sprinkled with fine dots and blotches of a light brown. For the most part these are grouped in a ring about the larger end.
Mr. R. Deane, of Cambridge, found this bird breeding near Lake Umbagog. Its nest was in the fork of a low spruce about three feet from the ground. The nest contained four eggs, and was made of dry grasses, spruce twigs, and rootlets. It was lined with fine black roots, being a rather coarse structure for a Warbler. The eggs were nearly spherical, averaging .62 by .51 of an inch. Their ground-color was a creamy-white, sparsely marked with a few large blotches of lilac and umber.
Dendroica cærulea, Baird.
CÆRULEAN WARBLER; WHITE-THROATED BLUE WARBLER.
Sylvia cærulea, Wils. Am. Orn. II, 1810, 141, pl. xvii, fig. 5. Sylvicola c. Swains.; Jard.; Rich.; Bon.; Aud. Orn. Biog. I, pl. xlix; Nutt. Dendroica c. Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 280; Rev. 191.—Gundl. Cab. Jour. 1861, 326 (Cuba; very rare).—Samuels, 579. Sylvia rara, Wilson, II, pl. xxvii, fig. 2.—Bon.; Aud. Orn. Biog. I, pl. xlix. Sylvia azurea, Steph. Shaw, Zoöl. X, 1817.—Bon. Am. Orn. II, 1828, pl. xxvii (♀).—Aud. Orn. Biog. I, pl. xlviii, xlix; Nutt. Sylvia bifasciata, Say, Long’s Exped. I, 1823, 170. Sylvia populorum, Vieill. Encyc. Méth. II, 1823, 449 (from Wilson).
Other localities: Bogota, Sclater, P. Z. S. 1857, 18. Panama R. R., Lawrence, Ann. N. Y. Lyc. 1861, 322. Yucatan, Lawr. Veragua, Salv.
Sp. Char. Male. Above bright blue, darkest on the crown, tinged with ash on the rump; middle of back, scapulars, upper tail-coverts, and sides of the crown, streaked with black. Beneath white; a collar across the breast, and streaks on the sides, dusky-blue. Lores, and a line through and behind the eye (where it is bordered above by whitish), dusky-blue; paler on the cheeks. Two white bands on the wings. All the tail-feathers except the innermost with a white patch on the inner web near the end. Female, greenish-blue above, brightest on the crown; beneath white, tinged with greenish-yellow, and obsoletely streaked on the sides; eyelids and a superciliary line greenish-white. Length, 4.25; wing, 2.65; tail, 1.90.