Audubon's Birds/BIRDSVER1_3.BIN/dp/0017/00173.txt

Text File | 1992-08-27 | 7KB | 125 lines

$Unique_ID{BRD00173}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{The Blue Yellow-Backed Wood-Warbler}
$Subject{Sylvicolinae; Sylvicola; Parula; Americana; Blue Yellow-Backed
Wood-Warbler; Northern Parula}
$Journal{Birds of America:  Volume II}
$Volume{Vol. 2:57-59}
$Family{Sylvicolinae}
$Genus{Sylvicola; Parula}
$Species{Americana}
$Common_Name{Blue Yellow-Backed Wood-Warbler; Northern Parula}
$Log{
Plate XCI*00173p1.scf
Family*00150.TXT
Genus*00157.TXT
}

       Portions copyright (c) Creative Multimedia Corp., 1990-91, 1992

                       B I R D S   O F   A M E R I C A .

                    By John James Audubon, F. R. SS. L. & E.

                   ------------------------------------------
                                   VOL.  II.
                        --------------------------------


                      THE BLUE YELLOW-BACKED WOOD-WARBLER.
                               [Northern Parula.]


                           SYLVICOLA AMERICANA, Lath.
                              [Parula americana.]


                          PLATE XCI.--MALE AND FEMALE.


     This pretty species enters Louisiana from the south as early as spring
appears, at the period when most insects are found closer to the ground, and
more about water-courses, than shortly after, when a warmer sun has invited
every leaf and blossom to hail the approach of that season when they all become
as brilliant as nature intended them to be.  The little fellow under your eye is
then seen flitting over damp places, such as the edges of ponds, lakes, and
rivers, chasing its prey with as much activity and liveliness as any other of
the delicate and interesting tribe to which it belongs.  It alights on every
plant in its way, runs up and down it, picks here and there a small winged
insect, and should one, aware of its approach, fly off, pursues it and snatches
it in an instant.
     I have placed a pair of these Warblers on a handsome species of iris.  This
plant grows in the water, and in the neighbourhood of New Orleans, a few miles
below that city, where I found it abundantly, and in bloom, in the beginning of
April.  Several flowers are produced upon the same stem.  I have not met with it
anywhere else, and the name of Louisiana flag is the one commonly given it.
     As soon as the foliage of the forests begins to expand, the Blue
Yellow-backed Warbler flies to the tops of the trees, and there remains during
the season, gleaning amongst the leaves and branches, in the same active manner
as it employed when nearer the ground, not leaving off its quick and short
pursuit of small insects on the wing.  When on the branches, it frequently
raises its body (which is scarcely larger when stripped of its feathers than the
first joint of a man's finger) upwards to the full length of its legs and toes,
and is thus enabled to seize insects otherwise beyond its reach.
     Its flight is that of a true Sylvia.  It ascends for awhile in a very
zigzag manner, and returns suddenly to nearly the same place, as if afraid to
encounter the dangers of a prolonged excursion.  I do not think it ever flies to
the ground.  It hops sidewise as well as straight forward, hangs like a
Titmouse, and searches the cups of even the smallest flowers for its favourite
insects.
     I am inclined to think that it raises two broods in a season, having seen
and shot the young on the trees, in Louisiana, early in May, and again in the
beginning of July.  The nest is small, formed of lichens, beautifully arranged
on the outside, and lined with the cottony substances found on the edges of
different mosses.  It is placed in the fork of a small twig, and so far towards
the extremity of the branches as to have forced me to cut them ten or fifteen
feet from it, to procure one.  On drawing in the branch carefully to secure the
nest, the male and female always flew towards me, exhibiting all the rage and
animosity befitting the occasion.  The eggs are pure white, with a few reddish
dots at the larger end, and were in two instances four in number.  It was
several years before I discovered one of these nests, so small are they, and so
difficult to be seen from the ground.
     This species is found throughout the United States, and may be considered
as one of the most beautiful of the birds of our country.  It has no song, but
merely a soft, greatly prolonged twitter, repeated at short intervals.  It
returns southward, out of the Union, in the beginning of October.


     BLUE YELLOW-BACK WARBLER, Sylvia pusilla, Wils. Amer. Orn., vol. iv. p. 17.
     SYLVIA AMERICANA, Bonap. Syn., p. 33.
     BLUE YELLOW-BACKED WARBLER, Sylvia Americana, Aud. Orn. Biog., vol. i.
       p. 78.


     Bill much attenuated; outer three quills nearly equal, first or second
longest; tail almost even, with the feathers pointed.  Male with the upper parts
light blue, the fore part of the back yellowish-green; two broad bands of white
on the wing, formed by the tips of the secondary coverts, and first row of small
coverts; quills and tail-feathers dusky, margined with blue; a white spot on the
outer three of the latter; loral space black; both eyelids with a white spot;
throat yellow, with whitish patches, a lunular band of blackish on the fore
neck; breast yellow, spotted with dull orange, the rest of the lower parts
yellowish, fading into white; the sides pale greyish-blue.  Female similar but
paler; the loral band wanting; throat, fore neck, and breast yellow, without the
black lunule.
     Although the bill of this species is much attenuated, it is not essentially
different in form from that of S. Blackburniae, and others of this genus; the
wings are similar to those of the rest, and there seems no reason for setting it
apart to form a genus, as has been done by BONAPARTE.
     Male, 4 1/6, 6 1/2.
     From Texas, generally distributed.  Exceedingly abundant.  Migratory.



                      THE COPPERY IRIS, OR LOUISIANA FLAG.


     IRIS CUPREA, Pursch, Fl. Amer., vol. i. p. 30.--TRIANDRIA MONOGYNIA, Linn.
       --IRIDES, Juss.

     "Beardless, the stem equal in height to the leaves, which are broadly
ensiform, the stigmas linear and short, all the petals emarginate, reflected,
and obovate, the inner shorter, the capsules large and hexagonal.  Found on the
banks of the Mississippi, near New Orleans.  Flowers of a beautiful copper
colour, veined with purple."