120 PURPLE MARTIN.
The circumstance of their leaving the United States so early in autumn,
has inclined me to think that they must go farther from them than
any of our migratory land birds. This, however, is only conjecture, of
which, kind reader, you may better judge when you have read my account
of the Cliff Swallow.
H I R U N D O P U R P U R E A , Linn. Syst. Nat. vol. i. p. 844.—Lath. Ind. Ornith. vol. ii.
p. 578.—Ch. Bonaparte, Synopsis of Birds of the United States, p. 64.
P U R P L E M A R T I N , H I R U N D O P U R P U R E A , Wils. Americ. Ornith. p. 58, PI. xxxix.
fig. 1. Male ; fig. 2. Female.
Adult Male. Plate XXII. Fig 1, 1.
Bill short, rather robust, much depressed and very broad at the base;
compressed towards the tip ; upper mandible notched near the tip, which
is rather obtuse and a little declinate; lower mandible nearly straight ;
gap as wide as the head, and extending to beneath the eye. Nostrils basal,
lateral, roundish. Head large. Neck short. Body rather elongated
and depressed. Feet very short; tarsus and toes scutellate anteriorly,
lateral toes nearly equal, the outer united to the second joint; claws short,
weak, arched, rather obtuse.
Plumage silky, shining, and blended. Wings very long and slender,
sickle-shaped when closed, the first primary longest. Tail of ordinary
length, shorter than the wings, forked, when spread even, of twelve straight,
narrowish feathers.
Bill deep brownish-black. Iris dark brown. Feet purplish-black.
The plumage is generally of a deep blackish-blue, with intense purplishblue
reflections; the quills and tail-feathers brownish-black.
Length 7 | inches, extent of wings 16 ; bill along the back along
the gap 1, width of the gap f ; tarsus f, middle toe the same.
Adult Female. Plate XXII. Fig. 2, %
Fore and upper part of the head brownish-grey, mottled with black;
upper parts generally of the same tints as the male, with more grey.
Throat, fore neck, and upper breast, dark grey, transversely lined with
black. The rest of the under parts lightish grey, longitudinally streaked
with blackish, darker and transversely streaked on the sides, and under
the tail nearly white, with slight lines.
THE YELLOW-BREASTED WARBLER, OR MARYLAND
YELLOW-THROAT.
SYLVIA TRICHAS, L A T H.
PLATE X X I I I . MALE A N D F E M A L E.
T H E notes of this little bird render it more conspicuous than most of
its genus, for although they cannot be called very musical, they are far
from being unpleasant, and are uttered so frequently during the day, that
one, in walking along the briary ranges of the fences, is almost necessarily
brought to listen to its xohitititee, repeated three or four times every five
or six minutes, the bird seldom stopping expressly to perform its music,
but merely uttering the notes after it has picked an insect from amongst
the leaves of the low bushes which it usually inhabits. It then hops a
step or two up or down, and begins again.
Although timid, it seldom flies far off at the approach of man, but instantly
dives into the thickest parts of its favourite bushes and high grass,
where it continues searching for food either along the twigs, or among
the dried leaves on the ground, and renews its little song when only a
few feet distant.
Its nest is one of those which the Cow Bunting (Icterus pccoris)
selects, in which to deposit one of its eggs, to be hatched by the owners,
that bird being similar in this respect to the European Cuckoo. The
nest, which is placed on the ground, and partly sunk in it, is now and
then covered over in the form of an oven, from which circumstance
children name this warbler the Oven-bird. It is composed externally of
withered leaves and grass, and is lined with hair. The eggs are from
four to six, of a white colour, speckled with light brown, and are deposited
about the middle of May. Sometimes two broods are reared in
a season. I have never observed the egg of the Cow Bunting in the
nests of the second brood. It is less active in its motions than most of
the Sylvia?, but makes up this deficiency by continued application, it
being, to appearance, busily employed during the whole of the day. It
does not chase insects by flying after them, but secures them by surprise.
Caterpillars and spiders form its principal food.
Although this species is found throughout the Union, the Middle