_Motacilla citrea_, BODD. Tabl. 1783 (Pl. enl. 704, fig. 2).
_Protonotaria citrea_, BAIRD, Birds N. Am. 1858, 239; Rev.
173.—SCLATER, Catal. 1861, 26, no. 166.—GUNDL. Cab. Jour. 1861,
324 (Cuba; very rare). _Helminthophaga citrea_, Cab. Jour. 1861,
85 (Costa Rica). _Motacilla protonotarius_, GM. _Sylvia prot._
LATH.—VIEILL. Ois. Am. Sept. II, pl. lxxxiii.—WILSON, Am. Orn.
III, pl. xxiv. fig. 2.—AUD. Orn. Biog. II, pl. iii. _Vermivora
prot._ BON. _Helinaia prot._ AUD. _Helmitherus prot._ BON.
_Compsothlypis prot._ CAB. Jour. _Motacilla auricollis_, GMEL. I,
1788, 984. _Sylvia aur._ LATH., etc. (based on _Le Grand Figuier
du Canada_, BRISSON, Ois. III, 1760, 508, pl. xxvi, fig. 1).
Female. _Sylvicola aur._ NUTT. Man. I, 1840, 431.
SP. CHAR. Bill very large; as long as the head. Head and neck all
round, with the entire under parts, including the tibiæ, rich yellow,
excepting the anal region and under tail-coverts, which are white.
Back dark olive-green, with a tinge of yellow; rump, upper
tail-coverts, wings, and tail above, bluish ash-color. Inner margin of
quills and the tail-feathers (except the innermost) white; the outer
webs and tips like the back. Length, 5.40; wing, 2.90; tail, 2.25.
HAB. Eastern Province of United States (Southern region); Cuba, Costa
Rica, and Panama R.R. Not recorded from Mexico or Guatemala.
Accidental in New Brunswick (G. A. BOARDMAN in letter). Yucatan
(LAWRENCE).
This is one of the very handsomest of American Warblers, the yellow of
the head and lower parts being of a pureness and mellowness scarcely
approached by any other species. In a highly colored male from
Southern Illinois (No. 10,111, Mississippi Bottom, Union Co., April
23; R. Kennicott) it is stained in spots, particularly over the eyes
and on the neck, with a beautiful cadmium-orange.
[Illustration: _Protonotaria citrea._
7516]
HABITS. In regard to the habits of this beautiful and interesting
Warbler we receive but little light from the observations of older
ornithological writers. Its geographical distribution is somewhat
erratic and irregular. It does not appear to be distributed over a
very wide range. It occurs as a migrant in the West Indies and in
Central America. In the United States it is found in the Southern
region, but farther west the range widens, and in the Mississippi
Valley it is found as far north as Kansas, Southern and Central
Illinois, and Missouri. Accidental specimens have been obtained as far
to the northeast as Calais, though unknown to all the Eastern States
as far south as Southern Virginia. It was met with by none of the
government parties except by Dr. Woodhouse, who found it abundant in
Texas.
Mr. Audubon observed them, near Louisville, Kentucky, frequenting
creeks and lagoons overshadowed by large trees. These were their
favorite places of resort. They also preferred the borders of sheets
of water to the interior of the forest. They return in spring to the
Southern States early in March, but to Kentucky not before the last of
April. They leave in October, and raise but a single brood in a
season. Audubon describes their nest, but it differs so essentially
from their known mode of breeding, that he was evidently in error in
regard to his supposed identification of the nest of this species.
Dr. Bachman, who often met them on the borders of small streams near
Charleston, was confident that they breed in that State, and noticed a
pair with four young birds as early as June 1, in 1836.
Recently more light has been thrown upon their habits by Mr. B. F.
Goss, who, in May, 1863, found them breeding near Neosho Falls, in
Kansas. The nest was built within a Woodpecker’s hole in the stump of
a tree, not more than three feet high. The nest was not rounded in
shape, but made to conform to the irregular cavity in which it was
built. It was of oblong shape, and its cavity was deepest, not in the
centre, but at one end, upon a closely impacted base made up of
fragments of dried leaves, broken bits of grasses, stems, mosses, and
lichens, decayed wood, and other material, the upper portion
consisting of an interweaving of fine roots of wooded plants, varying
in size, but all strong, wiry, and slender. It was lined with hair.
Other nests since discovered are of more uniform forms, circular in
shape, and of coarser materials, and all are built with unusual
strength and care for a nest occupying a sheltered cavity.
In one instance their nest was built in a brace-hole within a mill,
where the birds could be closely watched as they carried in the
materials, and the parent was afterward taken by hand by Mr. Goss from
its nest. It was quite tame, and approached within two yards of him.
Since then Mr. Ridgway has obtained a nest at Mt. Carmel, Ill. It was
built in a hollow snag, about five feet from the ground, in the river
bottom. So far from being noisy and vociferous, as its name would seem
to imply, Mr. Ridgway describes it as one of the shyest and most
silent of all the Warblers.
The eggs of this Warbler have an average breadth of .55 of an inch and
a length varying from .65 to .70 of an inch. They are of a
rounded-oval form, one end being but slightly less rounded than the
other. Their ground-color is a yellowish or creamy white, more or less
profusely marked over their entire surface with lilac, purple, and a
dark purplish-brown.
Mr. Ridgway states that it is always an abundant summer bird in the
Wabash bottoms, where it inhabits principally bushy swamps and the
willows around the borders of stagnant lagoons or “ponds” near the
river, and in such localities, in company with the White-bellied
Swallow (_Hirundo bicolor_), takes possession of the holes of the
Downy Woodpecker (_Picus pubescens_) and Chickadee (_Parus
carolinensis_), in which to build its nest.
Mr. Ridgway adds that in its movements this Warbler is slow and
deliberate, like the _Helmitherus vermivorus_, strikingly different in
this respect from the sprightly, active _Dendroecæ_. Its common note
is a sharp _piph_, remarkably like the winter note of the _Zonotrichia
albicollis_.
It has been taken as far north as Rock Island, Ill., and Dr. Coues
mentions the occurrence of one individual near Washington, D. C., seen
in a swampy brier-patch, May 2, 1861. This was perhaps only an
accidental visitor. If regularly found there, it is probably
exceedingly rare. It has not been met with between Washington and St.
Stephens, New Brunswick, where its occurrence was unquestionably
purely accidental.