WESTERN BIRDS Wartler 



GENUS OPORORNIS: MACGILLIVRAY 

 OR TOLMIE WARBLER. 



Toltnie Warbler: Oporornis tolmiei. 

 FAMILY— WOOD WARBLERS. 



The Macgillivray or Tolmie Warbler is easy of identi- 

 fication as you see him flitting about in the chaparral 

 or trees because his head, throat, and breast are a dark 

 slate gray, relieved by a black spot between eye and bill 

 (lores) and a white line (discontinued eye-ring) above 

 and below the black eye. The lighter ashy tips of the 

 throat feathers give a mottled appearance. The olive 

 upper parts and the bright yellow which joins the gray 

 breast complete a distinctive, but handsome costume, 

 which always has the appearance of being well groomed. 

 The adult female has the head and neck a paler ash, 

 which fades to a paler shade, or grayish white, on throat 

 and chest. 



This Warbler is about five inches long and ranges 

 along the Pacific Coast, through southern Arizona and 

 northern New Mexico, to the eastern foothills of the 

 Rocky Mountains and southwestern South Dakota; 

 casual in migration to North Dakota, Nebraska, and 

 central Texas. 



This charming western bird is a frequenter of brush- 

 covered hillsides, canyons, or wooded thickets, especially 

 if there be water near, where it places its nest in an up- 

 right crotch from a few inches to a few feet from the 

 ground. Sometimes the nest is built in a clump of 

 weeds on the hillside, or an open place in the mountains, 

 but wherever the location, bush or weed clump, the nests 

 are hard to find, for the bird is shy at this time and 

 slips to and from the nest, so blending with the grasses 

 and foliage that it escapes detection. 



273 



