202 BLACK-POLL WARBLER.
Carolina, while it is abundantly found in the State of New Jersey close
to the sea shore. There you would think that it had changed its habits;
for, instead of skipping among the taller branches of trees, it is seen
moving along the trunks and large limbs, almost in the manner of a Certhia,
searching the chinks of the bark for larvae and pupse. They are
met with in groups of ten, twelve, or more, in the end of April, but
after that period few are to be seen. In Massachusetts they begin
to appear nearly a month later, the intervening time being no- doubt
spent on their passage through New York and Connecticut. I found
them at the end of May in the eastern part of Maine, and met with them
wherever we landed on our voyage to Labrador, where they arrive from
the 1st to the 10th of June, throwing themselves into every valley covered
by those thickets, which they prefer for their breeding places. It also
breeds abundantly in Newfoundland.
In these countries it has almost become a Flycatcher. You see it
darting in all directions after insects, chasing them on wing, and not unfrequently
snapping so as to emit the clicking sound characteristic of the
true Flycatcher. Its activity is pleasing, but its notes have no title to
be called a song. They are shrill, and resemble the noise made by striking
two small pebbles together, more than any other sound that I know.
They may be in some degree imitated by pronouncing the syllable sche,
sche, sche, sche, sche, so as progressively to increase the emphasis.
I found the young fully grown in the latter part of August, but with
the head as in the females, and like them they obtain their full plumage
during the next spring migration, after which these birds return southward.
They raise only one brood in the season, and if any of them breed
in the United States, it must be in the northern parts. They are seldom
seen in autumn in the States, and very seldom during the summer months.
The Black-poll Warbler is a gentle bird, by no means afraid of man,
although it pursues some of its smaller enemies with considerable courage.
The sight of a Canadian Jay excites it greatly, as that marauder often
sucks its eggs, or swallows its young. In a few instances I have seen the
Jay confounded by the temerity of its puny assailant.
The occurrence of this species so far north in the breeding season, and
the curious diversity of its habits in different parts of the vast extent of
country which it traverses, are to me quite surprising, and lead me to
add some remarks on the migration of various species of Sylvia, which,
like the present, seem to skip, as it were, over large portions of the country.
BLACK-POLL WARBLER. 203
In the course of my voyages to the south-eastern extremity of the
Peninsula of the Floridas, I frequently observed birds of many kinds flying
either high or low over the sea. Of these the greater number were,
like the present species, Sylvias which are never found in Georgia or the
two Carolinas. Their course was a direct one, and such as led me to believe
that the little voyagers were bound for Cape Hatteras. The meeting
with many of the species to which I allude, along the shores of Maryland,
New Jersey, the eastern coast of Long Island, &c, and all along to
the Bay of Fundy, has strengthened the idea; but as I may not be correct,
I leave the matter to the determination of more experienced observers.
The subject appears to me to be one of the greatest importance,
for the occurrence of plants in certain parts of a country and not in others
may possibly be caused by the absence, during migration, of such birds
as move by " short cuts11 from one point of land to another.
S Y L V I A S T R I A T A , Lath. Ind Ornitb. vol. ii. p. 61.—Clu Bonaparte, Synops. of Birds of
the United States, p. 8 1 .
S Y L V I C O L A S T R I A T A , Swains, and Richards. Fauna Bor. Amer. part u. p. 218.
B L A C K - T O L L W A R B L E R , S Y L V I A S T R I A T A , Wits. Amer. Ornith. vol. iv. p. 40. pi. 30.
fig. 3. Male ; and vol. vi. p. 10. pL 49. fig. 4. Female—Nuttall, Manual, part i.
p. 383.
Adult Male. Plate CXXXIII. Fig. 1, 1.
Bill shortish, nearly straight, subulato-conical, acute, nearly as deep
as broad at the base, the edges sharp, with a slight notch near the tip,
the gap line a little deflected at the base. Nostrils basal, elliptical, lateral,
half-closed by a membrane. Head of ordinary size, neck short, general
form slender. Feet of ordinary length, slender; tarsus covered anteriorly
by a few scutella, the uppermost long, sharp behind; toes scutellate above,
the inner free, the hind toe of moderate size; claws arched, slender, extremely
compressed, acute.
Plumage soft, blended, slightly glossed. Wings of ordinary length,
the first quill longest. Tail of moderate length, emarginate.
Bill brownish-black above, pale beneath. Iris deep-brown. Feet
pale yellowish-brown. Upper part of the head deep black. Hind neck,
back, and tail-coverts, bluish-grey, each feather with a broad central
stripe of deep black. Wing-coverts and secondary quills brownishblack,
the latter margined, the secondary coverts margined and tipped, and
the first row of small coverts broadly tipped with white, that colour form