Part 32

Mr. Audubon found its nest placed deep among the branches of low fir-trees, supported by horizontal twigs, constructed of moss and lichens, and lined with fibrous roots and feathers. One found in Labrador, in the beginning of July, contained five eggs, small and rather more elongated than is common in this genus. They were white, and sprinkled with reddish dots at the larger end. The female fluttered among the branches, spreading her wings and tail in great distress, and returning to her nest as soon as the intruders were a few yards off. In August he saw a number of their young already following their parents and moving southward. In his expedition to Texas, Mr. Audubon again met this bird, in considerable numbers, early in April. Their eggs, he states, measure three fourths of an inch in length by nine sixteenths in breadth. In some the ground-color, instead of pure white, is of a yellowish tinge.

The writer found this Warbler abundant near Halifax in the early summer of 1850, frequenting the thick hemlock woods, confiding in its habits, unsuspicious, and easily approached. The distress, as described by Audubon, manifested in behalf of its own young, it is as ready to exhibit when the nest of a feathered neighbor is disturbed. A pair of Hudson’s Bay Titmice, protesting against the invasion of their home, by their outcries brought a pair of these Warblers to their sympathetic assistance; and the latter manifested, in a more gentle way, quite as much distress and anxiety as the real parents. With expanded tail and half-extended wings they fluttered overhead among the branches, approaching us almost within reach, uttering the most piteous outcries.

Sir John Richardson found this Warbler as common and as familiar as the _D. æstiva_ on the Saskatchewan, and greatly resembling it in habits, though gifted with a much more varied and agreeable song.

Mr. Kennicott met this Warbler on Great Slave Lake, June 12, 1860, where he obtained a female, nest, and five eggs. The nest, loosely built, was placed in a small spruce about two feet from the ground, and in thick woods. The bird was rather bold, coming to her nest while he stood by it. This nest was only one and a half inches deep, with a diameter of three and a half inches; the cavity only one inch deep, with a diameter of two and a half inches. It was made almost entirely of fine stems of plants and slender grasses, and a few mosses. The cavity was lined with finer stems, and fine black roots of herbaceous plants.

The eggs of this Warbler are, in shape, a rounded oval, one end being but slightly more pointed than the other. They measure .62 of an inch in length and .49 in breadth. Their ground-color is a light ashen hue, or a dull white, and this is more or less sprinkled with fine dots and blotches of a light brown. For the most part these are grouped in a ring about the larger end.

Mr. R. Deane, of Cambridge, found this bird breeding near Lake Umbagog. Its nest was in the fork of a low spruce about three feet from the ground. The nest contained four eggs, and was made of dry grasses, spruce twigs, and rootlets. It was lined with fine black roots, being a rather coarse structure for a Warbler. The eggs were nearly spherical, averaging .62 by .51 of an inch. Their ground-color was a creamy-white, sparsely marked with a few large blotches of lilac and umber.

Dendroica cærulea, BAIRD.

CÆRULEAN WARBLER; WHITE-THROATED BLUE WARBLER.

_Sylvia cærulea_, WILS. Am. Orn. II, 1810, 141, pl. xvii, fig. 5. _Sylvicola c._ SWAINS.; JARD.; RICH.; BON.; AUD. Orn. Biog. I, pl. xlix; NUTT. _Dendroica c._ BAIRD, Birds N. Am. 1858, 280; Rev. 191.—GUNDL. Cab. Jour. 1861, 326 (Cuba; very rare).—SAMUELS, 579. _Sylvia rara_, WILSON, II, pl. xxvii, fig. 2.—BON.; AUD. Orn. Biog. I, pl. xlix. _Sylvia azurea_, STEPH. Shaw, Zoöl. X, 1817.—BON. Am. Orn. II, 1828, pl. xxvii (♀).—AUD. Orn. Biog. I, pl. xlviii, xlix; NUTT. _Sylvia bifasciata_, SAY, Long’s Exped. I, 1823, 170. _Sylvia populorum_, VIEILL. Encyc. Méth. II, 1823, 449 (from Wilson). Other localities: _Bogota_, SCLATER, P. Z. S. 1857, 18. _Panama R. R._, LAWRENCE, Ann. N. Y. Lyc. 1861, 322. _Yucatan_, LAWR. _Veragua_, SALV.

SP. CHAR. _Male._ Above bright blue, darkest on the crown, tinged with ash on the rump; middle of back, scapulars, upper tail-coverts, and sides of the crown, streaked with black. Beneath white; a collar across the breast, and streaks on the sides, dusky-blue. Lores, and a line through and behind the eye (where it is bordered above by whitish), dusky-blue; paler on the cheeks. Two white bands on the wings. All the tail-feathers except the innermost with a white patch on the inner web near the end. _Female_, greenish-blue above, brightest on the crown; beneath white, tinged with greenish-yellow, and obsoletely streaked on the sides; eyelids and a superciliary line greenish-white. Length, 4.25; wing, 2.65; tail, 1.90.

HAB. Eastern United States, north to Niagara Falls; Cuba (very rare); Guatemala; Veragua, Panama, and Bogota. Not recorded from Mexico (except Yucatan), or West Indies (except Cuba).

The autumnal adult plumage of both sexes is, in every respect, exactly like the spring dress. Young males in late summer are very similar to adult females, but are purer white below, and less uniform greenish-blue above, the dark stripes on sides of the crown and black centres to scapulars being quite conspicuous; the young female, at the same season, is similar in pattern to the adult, but is dull green above, without any tinge of blue, and light buffy-yellow below.

There is considerable variation in adult males, especially in the width of the pectoral collar; one (No. 60,877, Mt. Carmel, Wabash Co., Ill., Aug. 9) has this entirely interrupted. In this individual there is no trace of a whitish supra-auricular streak; while others from the same locality, and obtained at the same date, have the band across the jugulum continuous, and a quite distinct white streak over the ear-coverts.

HABITS. Of this somewhat rare Warbler very little is as yet well known. Its habits and distribution during the breeding-season need more light than we now possess to enable us to give its story with any degree of exactness. Its appearance in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, and Missouri early in May, when Warblers that go north to breed are on their way, at first suggested its belonging to that class. It is not known to proceed any farther north, except in accidental instances; though the writer has been assured, and has no reason to doubt the fact, that it abounds and breeds in the neighborhood of Niagara Falls. I can find no good evidence that it ever occurs in Massachusetts. Individuals have been obtained in northern South America, Panama, and Cuba. Dr. Woodhouse describes it as quite common in Texas and in the Indian Territory, where it breeds, as he obtained both the old and the young birds. It was also abundant among the timbered lands of the Arkansas and its tributaries. It was not obtained in any other of the government expeditions, nor was it found in Arizona by Dr. Coues. Mr. T. M. Trippe noticed a single individual near Orange, N. Y. Wilson supposed them to breed in Pennsylvania, though he was never able to find their nests. He usually met with these birds in marshes or on the borders of streams among the branches of poplars. Their habits were those of the Flycatchers. He saw none later than the 20th of August. Describing this species as the Blue-green Warbler, as met with by him on the banks of the Cumberland early in April, he mentions its gleaning for food among the upper branches of the tallest trees, rendering it difficult to be procured. Its resemblance, in habits, to Flycatchers, he again remarks. Its only note was a feeble _cheep_.

According to Audubon, this Warbler appears in Louisiana, where it also breeds early in spring, and leaves the first of October. Like all its family, it is quite lively, has a similar flight, moves sideways up and down the branches, and hangs from the ends of the twigs in its search for insects.

Mr. Audubon also states that the liveliness of the notes of this Warbler renders it conspicuous in the forests, the skirts of which it frequents. Its song, though neither loud nor of long continuance, he speaks of as extremely sweet and mellow. He found it as numerous in the State of Louisiana as any other Warbler, so that he could sometimes obtain five or six in a single walk.

The nest he describes as placed in the forks of a low tree or bush, partly pensile, projecting a little above the twigs to which it is attached, and extending below them nearly two inches. The outer part is composed of the fibres of vines and the stalks of herbaceous plants, with slender roots arranged in a circular manner. The nest is lined with fine dry fibres of the Spanish moss. The eggs are five in number, of a pure white with a few reddish spots about the larger end. When disturbed during incubation, the female is said to trail along the branches with drooping wings and plaintive notes, in the manner of _D. æstiva_. After the young have left the nest, they move and hunt together, in company with their parents, evincing great activity in the pursuit of insects. They are also said to have a great partiality for trees the tops of which are thickly covered with grapevines, and to occasionally alight on tall weeds, feeding upon their seeds.

In his visit to Texas, Mr. Audubon met a large number of these birds apparently coming from Mexico. On one occasion he encountered a large flock on a small island.

Mr. Nuttall mentions finding these birds very abundant in Tennessee and also in West Florida.

In only a single instance has the writer met with this Warbler. This was about the middle of June, at the Fairmount Water Works in the city of Philadelphia, where, among the tops of the trees, a single individual was busily engaged in hunting insects, undisturbed by the large numbers and vicinity of visitors to the grounds. It kept in the tops of the trees, moving about with great agility.

Mr. Ridgway gives the Cærulean Warbler as the most abundant species of its genus in the Lower Wabash Valley, not only during the spring and fall migrations, but also in the summer, when it breeds more plentifully even than the _D. æstiva_. It inhabits, however, only the deep woods of the bottom lands, where it is seldom seen, and only to be distinguished by the naturalist. Inhabiting, mostly, the tree-tops, it is an inconspicuous bird, and thus one that easily escapes notice. In its habits it is perhaps less interesting than others of its genus, being so retired, and possessing only the most feeble notes.

Dendroica blackburniæ, BAIRD.

BLACKBURNIAN WARBLER; ORANGE-THROATED WARBLER.

_Motacilla blackburniæ_, GMELIN, Syst. Nat. I, 1788, 977. _Sylvia bl._ LATH.; WILSON, III, pl. xxiii.—NUTT.; AUD. Orn. Biog. II, V, pl. cxxxv, cccxcix. _Sylvicola bl._ JARD.; RICH.; AUD. Birds Am. II, pl. lxxxvii. _Rhimanphus bl._ CAB. Mus. Hein. 1850, 19. _Dendroica bl._ BAIRD, Birds N. Am. 1858, 274; Rev. 189.—SCLATER & SALVIN, Ibis, 1859, 11 (Guatemala).—SCLATER, P. Z. S. 1859, 363 (Xalapa); IB. 1860, 64 (Ecuador).—IB. Catal. 1861, 30, no. 187 (Pallatanga and Nanegal, Ecuador).—SAMUELS, 227.—SUNDEVALL, Ofv. 1869, 611.—DRESSER, Ibis, 1865, 478. _? Motacilla chrysocephala_, GMELIN, I, 1788, 971 (_Figuier orangé et F. étranger_, BUFF. V, 313, pl. lviii, fig. 3, Guiana). _Sylvia parus_, WILS. V, pl. xliv, fig. 3.—AUD. Orn. Biog. II, pl. cxxxiv. _Sylvicola parus_, AUD. Birds Am. II, pl. lxxxiii. _Sylvia lateralis_, STEPH. _? Motacilla incana_, GMEL. I, 1788, 976. _Sylvia incana_, LATH.; VIEILL. _? Sylvia melanorhoa_, VIEILL. Nouv. Dict. XI, 1817, 180 (Martinique).—IB. Encycl. Méth. II, 444. Localities quoted: _Bogota_, SCLATER, P. Z. S. 1855, 143. _Panama_, LAWR. Ann. N. Y. Lyc. VII, 62. _Costa Rica_, CAB. Jour. 1860, 328. _Bahamas_, BRYANT, Bost. Pr. VII, 1859. _Veragua_, SALVIN. _Orizaba_ (winter; rare), SUMICHRAST.

SP. CHAR. Upper parts nearly uniform black, with a whitish scapular stripe and a large white patch in the middle of the wing-coverts. An oblong patch in the middle of the crown, and the entire side of the head and neck (including a superciliary stripe from the nostrils), the chin, throat, and forepart of the breast, bright orange-red. A black stripe from the commissure passing around the lower half of the eye, and including the ear-coverts; with, however, an orange crescent in it, just below the eye, the extreme lid being black. Rest of under parts white, strongly tinged with yellowish-orange on the breast and belly, and streaked with black on the sides. Outer three tail-feathers white, the shafts and tips dark brown; the fourth and fifth spotted much with white; the other tail-feathers and quills almost black. _Female_ similar; the colors duller; the feathers of the upper parts with olivaceous edges. Length, 5.50; wing, 2.83; tail, 2.25.

HAB. Eastern Province of United States; Eastern Mexico, and south to Bogota and Ecuador; Bahamas alone of West Indies with certainty.

Autumnal males resemble the females. They have two white bands instead of one; the black stripes on the sides are larger; under parts yellowish; the throat yellowish, passing into purer yellow behind.

Autumnal young birds have the same pattern of coloration, but the dark portions are dull grayish-umber, with the streaks very obsolete, and the light parts dull buffy-white, tinged with yellow on the jugulum; there is neither clear black, bright yellow, nor pure white on the plumage, except the latter on the wing-bands and tail-patches.

HABITS. This somewhat rare and very beautiful Warbler requires additional investigation into its habits before its history can be regarded as satisfactorily known. Save in reference to its wider distribution during its southern migrations, little more is known as to its habits than where Audubon left its history nearly thirty years since. The Smithsonian collection has specimens from Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Missouri, Illinois, and from Central America. Mr. Sclater has received specimens from Mexico, and from Ecuador in South America. Other writers mention having specimens from Guiana, Martinique, and Panama, and Dr. Bryant found it in the Bahamas. It is thus known to have a wide distribution from the Atlantic to the Mississippi River, as far to the north probably as Labrador. Its area of reproduction is not known with exactness, but the southern limit is supposed to be the high wooded districts of Pennsylvania, New York, and New England. A young bird was taken by Holböll, October 16, 1845, at Frederikshaab, Greenland. In 1837 an egg was sent me from Coventry, Vt., which purported to belong to this bird; and in the following summer its nest and eggs were procured in a wild, secluded part of Roxbury, Mass. In neither case was the identification entirely free from doubt.

Dr. Bachman states that when a resident of Lansingburg, N. Y., in 1833, he saw a pair of these birds in the act of constructing their nest. Mr. Allen has no doubt that a few breed in the vicinity of Springfield, Mass., as he has obtained them as late as June 24. He found it most common in mixed or hard-wood forests. It arrives about the middle of May. Professor Verrill gives it as a summer resident of Western Maine, though rarely seen on account of its habit of keeping concealed among the dense foliage. Mr. Boardman gives the same account of its residence in summer in the neighborhood of Calais.

Mr. Audubon did not regard this bird and his “Hemlock Warbler” as the same species, but gave distinct and different accounts of their habits. We have therefore to receive with caution these records of peculiarities. He found the Blackburnian Warbler breeding in Northeastern Maine, in New Brunswick, in the Magdaleine Islands, and in Labrador and Newfoundland. He states, correctly, that it has a very sweet song of five or six notes, much louder than seemed possible from the size of the bird. It pursues its insect prey among the branches of the fir-trees, moving along after the manner of the common Redstart.

Mr. McCulloch, of Halifax, gave Mr. Audubon a nest of this bird with three eggs. The nest was formed externally of different textures, lined with fine delicate strips of bark and a thick bed of feathers and horse-hair. The eggs were small, conical, with a white ground spotted with light red at the larger end. The nest was in the small fork of a tree five feet from the ground, and near a brook.

The nest obtained in Roxbury was in a bush, a few feet from the ground, in a very wild region of forest and rocks. Externally, except in its length, which was less, it resembled a nest of the _G. trichas_, being made of coarse, dry grasses. Internally it was much more warmly lined with feathers and soft fur than is the case in nests of the Yellow-Throat. The eggs were of a crystal whiteness, marked at their larger end with dark purple, and but for their smaller size might have been mistaken for those of _G. trichas_. The position of the nest, however, was conclusive in regard to this point. The egg from Coventry was substantially similar, except that reddish-brown dots were mingled with the purple markings, in the form of a wreath around the larger end.

Wilson describes this Warbler as songless, but attributes to its counterpart, the Hemlock Warbler, a very sweet song of a few low notes,—a very different account from that given by Audubon of the song of the Blackburnian.

Mr. Paine states that this species is resident during the summer months in Randolph, Vt. It is, he says, a very close companion of the _D. virens_, arriving at the same time with it even to a day, or about the 10th of May. Its dry chirping song may then be heard in striking contrast with the sweet notes of the _virens_. He was not able to find its nest.

Mr. C. W. Wyatt met with this species as a winter resident at Alto, in Colombia, South America. Its upward range seemed to be terminated only by the paramos. Among the oaks on the Pamplona road he found it very common just under the paramo, the bright orange throat of the male making it a very conspicuous bird. He was led to believe that they were not found there at a lower elevation than five thousand feet.

Dendroica dominica, BAIRD.

YELLOW-THROATED GRAY WARBLER.

_Motacilla dominica_, L. Syst. Nat. 12th ed. 1766, 334 (_Ficedula dominica cinerea_, BRISS. III, 520, pl. xxvii, fig. 3). _Dendroica dominica_, BAIRD, Rev. Am. Birds, 209. _Motacilla superciliosa_, BODDÆRT, Tableau Pl. enl. 686, fig. 1, 1783. _Dendroica superciliosa_, BAIRD, Birds N. Am. 1858, 289.—SCLATER (Xalapa, Oaxaca, Jamaica, Mexico).—SCLATER & SALVIN, Ibis, 1860, 274 (Duenas, Guat.; Sept.).—MARCH, Pr. A. N. Sc. 1863, 293 (Jamaica).—GUNDLACH, Cab. Jour. 1861, 326 (Cuba; very common). _Motacilla flavicollis_, GMELIN, Syst. Nat. I, 1788, 959. _Sylvia fl._ LATH.; WILS. II, pl. xii, fig. 6. _Motacilla pensilis_, GMELIN, Syst. Nat. I, 1788, 960. _Sylvia p._ LATH.; VIEILL. (St. Domingo).—BON.; AUD. Orn. Biog. I, pl. lxxxv; NUTT. _Sylvicola pens._ RICH; BON.; AUD. Birds Am. II, pl. lxxix.—GOSSE, Birds Jam. 1847, 156 (Jamaica). _Rhimanphus pens._ CAB. Jour. III, 474 (Cuba). Other localities: _Cordova_, SCLATER, P. Z. S. 1856, 291. _St. Domingo_, SALLÉ, P. Z. S. 1857, 231. _Jamaica_, GOSSE, Birds Jam. 156.

SP. CHAR. Upper parts uniform grayish-blue. Chin and throat bright yellow; under parts white. Forehead, and sometimes most of crown, lores and cheeks, sides of throat, and numerous streaks on the sides of the breast, black. A stripe from the nostrils over and behind the eye, a crescent on the lower eyelid, the sides of the neck behind the black cheekpatch, and two conspicuous bands on the wings, white. Terminal half of the outer webs of the outer two, and terminal third of the third tail-feathers, white. _Female_ almost precisely similar. Length, 5.10; wing, 2.60; tail, 2.30. (3,322.)

HAB. Eastern Province of United States, north to Washington and Cleveland; in winter abundant in Cuba; St. Domingo and Jamaica; Mexico (Colima on west coast), and Guatemala. Resident in Jamaica?

An autumnal male (No. 1,098, Washington, D. C.) has the bluish-ash above obscured by a wash of brown; the black “mask” less sharply defined, the streaks on forehead wanting; the yellow paler and duller, and the white beneath soiled with brownish.

In general pattern of coloration this species resembles two others; one from Arizona, the other from Porto Rico. The diagnoses are as follows:—

COMMON CHARACTERS. Upper parts ash-gray, the forehead and sides of vertex black. A line from nostril to above eye (passing into white behind), chin, and throat, yellow, margined laterally with blackish; crissum, inside of wings, axillars; and two bands on wings, white.

Superciliary line extending to the nape, and white, excepting sometimes anterior to the eye. Cheeks black, separated from the ash of the neck by a white patch. Eyelids and infra-ocular crescent white. Back not streaked. Bill lengthened, gonys almost concave.

Yellow confined to jugulum; rest of under parts white; the sides streaked with black … _dominica_.

Superciliary line scarcely extending beyond the eye, and yellow, excepting at extreme end. Cheeks ashy, like sides of neck; dusky only near the eye, and not bordered on side of neck behind by white. Eyelids and infra-ocular crescent yellow. Back streaked. Bill short, gonys slightly convex.

Yellow of under parts confined to jugulum; rest of under parts white; the sides streaked with black … _graciæ_.

Yellow of under parts extending to crissum. Sides scarcely streaked … _adelaidæ._[51]

In the Review (p. 209) several variations in this species are noted; but at that time there was not a sufficient number of specimens to warrant our coming to a conclusion as to their value. Now, however, we have better material before us, and upon the examination of about thirty specimens, including two series of nearly equal numbers,—one from the Atlantic States and the West Indies, the other from the Mississippi region and Middle America,—find that there are two appreciably different races, to be distinguished from each other by points of constant difference. All birds of the first series have the bill longer than any of the latter, the difference in a majority of the specimens being very considerable; they also have the superciliary stripe bright yellow anteriorly, while among the latter there is never more than a trace of yellow over the lores, and even this minimum amount is discernible only in one or two individuals. The West Indian form is, of course, the true _dominica_, and to be distinguished as var. _dominica_; as none of the synonymes of this species were founded upon the Mexican one, however, it will be necessary to propose a new name; accordingly, the term var. _albilora_ is selected as being most descriptive of its peculiar features.

The following synopsis, taken from typical specimens, shows the differences between these two races:—