_Prairie Warbler._—+Wils.+
_Sylvicola discolor._
_Sylvia discolor_, +Vieill.+—Aud. pl. 14.
_Sylvia minuta_, +Wils.+
[40] Length 4³⁄₄ inches, expanse 7, flexure 2³⁄₁₀, tail 1⁹⁄₁₀,
rictus ¹¹⁄₂₀, tarsus ³⁄₄, 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.