_Sylvia discolor_, VIEILL. Ois. Am. Sept. II, 1807, 37, pl. xcviii.—
BON.; AUD. Orn. Biog. I, pl. xiv; NUTT.—LEMBEYE, Aves Cuba, 1850,
32, pl. vi, fig. 2. _Sylvicola discolor_, JARD.; RICH.; BON.; AUD.
Birds Am. II, pl. xcvii.—GOSSE, Birds Jam. 1847, 159. _Rhimanphus
discolor_, CAB. Jour. III, 1855, 474 (Cuba; winter). _Dendroica
discolor_, BAIRD, Birds N. Am. 1858, 290; Rev. 213.—NEWTON, Ibis,
1859, 144 (St. Croix).—BRYANT, Pr. Bost. Soc. VII, 1859
(Bahamas).—IB. 1866 (Porto Rico); 1867, 91 (Hayti).—GUNDLACH, Cab.
Jour. 1861, 326 (Cuba; very common).—SAMUELS, 241. _Sylvia
minuta_, WILSON, III, pl. xxv. fig. 4.
SP. CHAR. _Spring male._ Above uniform olive-green; the interscapular
region with chestnut-red centres to feathers. Under parts and sides of
the head, including a broad superciliary line from the nostrils to a
little behind the eye, bright yellow, brightest anteriorly. A
well-defined narrow stripe from the commissure of the mouth through
the eye, and another from the same point curving gently below it, also
a series of streaks on each side of the body, extending from the
throat to the flanks, black. Quills and tail-feathers brown, edged
with white; the terminal half of the inner web of the first and second
tail-feathers white. Two yellowish bands on the wings. _Female_
similar, but duller. The dorsal streaks indistinct. Length, 4.86;
wing, 2.25; tail, 2.10.
First plumage of the young not seen.
HAB. Atlantic region of United States, north to Massachusetts; South
Illinois; in winter very abundant throughout all the West India
Islands, as far, at least, as the Virgin Islands. Not recorded from
Mexico or Central America.
Autumnal specimens have the plumage more blended, but the markings not
changed. A young male in autumnal dress is wholly brownish olive-green
above, the whole wing uniform; the forehead ashy, the markings about
the head rather obsolete, the chestnut spots on the back and the black
ones on the sides nearly concealed.
HABITS. The Prairie Warbler, nowhere an abundant species, is pretty
generally, though somewhat irregularly, distributed through the
eastern portion of the United States from Massachusetts to Georgia
during its breeding-season. The Smithsonian Museum embraces no
specimens taken west of Philadelphia or Washington. I have had its
nest and eggs found in Central New York. Mr. Audubon speaks of its
occurring in Louisiana, but his accounts of its nesting are so
obviously inaccurate that we must receive this statement also with
misgivings. Wilson, however, obtained specimens in Kentucky, and gave
to it the inappropriate name of _Prairie_ Warbler. Nuttall regarded it
as rare in New England, which opinion more careful observations do not
confirm. They certainly are not rare in certain portions of
Massachusetts. In Essex County, and, according to Mr. Allen, in the
vicinity of Springfield, they are rather common. The Smithsonian
possesses specimens from the Bahamas, Jamaica, St. Croix, St. Thomas,
and other West India islands. Dr. Gundlach speaks of it as common in
Cuba. In the Bahamas, Dr. Bryant found these Warblers more abundant
than he had ever known them in the United States. In January all the
males were in winter plumage, some not having changed by April to
their summer costume. He regarded them as constant residents of those
islands. They had all paired off by the middle of April.
In the island of St. Croix, Mr. Edward Newton observed these Warblers
from the 10th of September to the 27th of March. They were present on
the island about two thirds of the year, and while they were found
were very common.
In Jamaica, according to Mr. March, they are numerous throughout the
entire year, though less abundant during the summer months. They were
always plentiful in the gardens about the _Malpighia glabra_,
capturing small insects from the ripe fruit.
Mr. Gosse, on the contrary, regarded it as only a winter visitant of
that island, appearing by the 18th of August, and disappearing by the
11th of April. He observed them among low bushes and herbaceous weeds,
along the roadside, near the ground, examining every stalk and twig
for insects. Others flew from bushes by the wayside to the middle of
the road, where, hovering in the air, a few feet from the ground, they
seemed to be catching small dipterous insects. Their stomachs were
filled with fragments of insects.
Wilson found them usually in open plains and thinly wooded tracts,
searching most leisurely among the foliage, carefully examining every
leaf or blade of grass for insects, uttering, at short intervals, a
brief _chirr_. They did not appear to be easily alarmed, and he has
known one of these birds to remain half an hour at a time on the lower
branch of a tree, and allow him to approach the foot, without being in
the least disturbed. He found their food consisted of winged insects
and small caterpillars.
In 1858, Mr. John Cassin wrote me: “The Prairie Warbler certainly
breeds in New Jersey, near Philadelphia. I have seen it all summer for
the last twelve years, and have seen the young just able to fly, but
never found the nest. It has a very peculiar note, which I know as
well as I do the Catbird’s, having often followed and searched it out.
It frequents cedar-trees, and I suspect breeds in and about them.”
Dr. Coues found the Prairie Warbler mostly a spring and autumn
visitant in the vicinity of Washington, being quite abundant during
those seasons. A few were observed to remain during the
breeding-season. They arrive earlier than most of this family of
birds, or about the 20th of April. He found them frequenting, almost
exclusively, cedar-patches and pine-trees, and speaks of their having
very peculiar manners and notes.
Both Wilson and Audubon were evidently at fault in their descriptions
of the nest and eggs. These do not correspond with more recent and
positive observations. Its nest is never pensile. Mr. Nuttall’s
descriptions, on the other hand, are made from his own observations,
and are evidently correct. He describes a nest that came under his
observation as scarcely distinguishable from that of the _D. æstiva_.
It was not pensile, but fixed in a forked branch, and formed of strips
of the inner bark of the red cedar, fibres of asclepia, and
caterpillars’ silk, and thickly lined with the down of the
_Gnaphalium plantagineum_. He describes the eggs as having a white
ground, sharp at one end, and marked with spots of lilac-purple and of
two shades of brown, more numerous at the larger end, where they
formed a ring. He speaks of their note as slender, and noticed their
arrival about the second week of May, leaving the middle of September.
At another time Mr. Nuttall was attracted by the slender, filing notes
of this bird, resembling the suppressed syllables _’tsh-’tsh-’tsh-’tshea_,
beginning low and gradually growing louder. With its mate it was
busily engaged collecting flies and larvæ about a clump of
locust-trees in Mount Auburn. Their nest was near, and the female,
without any precautions, went directly to it. Mr. Nuttall removed two
eggs, which he afterwards replaced. Each time, on his withdrawal, she
returned to the nest, and resorted to no expedients to entice him away.
Several nests of this Warbler have been obtained by Mr. Welch in Lynn.
One was built on a wild rose, only a few feet from the ground. It is a
snug, compact, and elaborately woven structure, having a height and a
diameter of about two and a half inches. The cavity is two inches wide
and one and a half deep. The materials of which the outer parts are
woven are chiefly the soft inner bark of small shrubs, mingled with
dry rose-leaves, bits of vegetables, wood, woody fibres, decayed stems
of plants, spiders’ webs, etc. The whole is bound together like a web
by cotton-like fibres of a vegetable origin. The upper rim of this
nest is a marked feature, being a strongly interlaced weaving of
vegetable roots and strips of bark. The lining of the nest is composed
of fine vegetable fibres and a few horse-hairs. This nest, in its
general mode of construction, resembles all that I have seen; only in
others the materials vary,—in some dead and decayed leaves, in others
remains of old cocoons, and in others the pappus of composite plants,
being more prominent than the fine strips of bark. The nests are
usually within four feet of the ground. The eggs vary from three to
five, and even six.
The late Dr. Gerhardt found this bird the most common Warbler in
Northern Georgia. There its nests were similar in size, structure, and
position, but differed more or less in the materials of which they
were made. The nests were a trifle larger and the walls thinner, the
cavities being correspondingly larger. The materials were more
invariably fine strips of inner bark and flax-like vegetable fibres,
and were lined with the finest stems of plants, in one case with the
feathers of the Great Horned Owl. In that neighborhood the eggs were
deposited by the 15th of May.
In Massachusetts the Prairie Warbler invariably selects wild
pasture-land, often not far from villages, and always open or very
thinly wooded. In Georgia their nests were built in almost every kind
of bush or low tree, or on the lower limbs of post-oaks, at the height
of from four to seven feet. Eggs were found once as early as the 2d of
May, and once as late as the 10th of June. The birds arrived there by
the 10th of April, and seemed to prefer hillsides, but were found in
almost any open locality.
In Southern Illinois, Mr. Ridgway cites this species as a rather rare
bird among the oak barrens where it breeds. He also met with it in
orchards in the wooded portions, in April, during the northward
migration of the _Sylvicolidæ_.
The eggs are of an oval shape, pointed at one end, and measure .68 by
.48 of an inch. They have a white ground, marked with spots of lilac
and purple and two shades of umber-brown.