518 NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



Genus SEIURUS Swainson. (Page 482, pi. CXYII., fig. 3.) 



Species. 



Common Characters. — Above plain dusky, brownish, or olive, the top of the 

 head, in one species, striped with blackish and orange-rufous; lower parts white, 

 streaked with brown or dusky. Nest on ground or in hollow stumps or logs near 

 gi-ound, well hidden, very bulky, loosely put together, the exterior composed of 

 dead leaves, etc., the lining of fine rootlets, grasses, etc. Eggs 3-6, pure white or 

 creamy white, spotted with reddish brown and lilac-gray. 



a}. Toj) of head with two lateral stripes of blackish, enclosing a median one of orange- 

 rufous ; no white superciliary stripe, but with a distinct whitish orbital ring. 

 Adult: Above gx'eenish olive, beneath pure white, the breast and sides 

 streaked with dusky or black. Young : Above fulvous brown, the 

 wing-coverts tipped with lighter fulvous, or buflfy ; lower parts pale 

 fulvous, or bufiy, very narrowly streaked on breast, etc., with dusky ; 

 stripes on top of head very indistinct, or obsolete. Length about 5.40- 

 6.50, wing 2.75-3.00, tail 2.00-2.25. Nest in dry woods, embedded in 

 ground, well concealed, the top usually roofed over or covered, the en- 

 trance more or less to one side. Eggs .80 X -61. Hab. Eastern North 

 America, north to Hudson's Bay and Alaska, breeding from 38°, or 

 lower, northward ; west to eastern base of Eocky Mountains ; south, in 

 winter, to southern Florida, West Indies (including Bahamas), Mexico 

 (both sides), and Central America, nearly to Panama. 



674. S. aurocapillus (Linn.). Oven-bird, 

 a\ Top of head plain brown, or dusky, like back (sometimes with indication of a 

 paler median streak anteriorly) ; a distinct whitish or pale fulvous super- 

 ciliary stripe ; with a dusky or brownish stripe beneath it, through eye ; 

 no whitish orbital ring. 

 5\ Superciliary stripe more or less fulvous ; streaks on lower parts darker than 

 upper surface ; throat always (?) distinctly speckled ; longer under tail- 

 coverts with nearly whole of concealed portion (both webs) brownish or 

 dusky ; lower parts never tinged with buffy laterally or posteriorly, but 

 often uniformly tinged with sulphur-yellow ; wing exceeding tail by a 

 little less than length of tarsus. Young : Similar to adult, but feathers 



1 The very distinct winter range of the two races of Palm Warbler shows the necessity of recognizing such 

 geographical forms. The National Museum possesses specimens of true D. palmarum from Cuba, Haiti, and 

 Jamaica, and has received in one collection from the Bahamas more than fifty specimens, representing most of 

 the islands in the group ; yet every one in this large series, and also among those from Key West, is absolutely 

 typical. B. hypochrysea has not yet been traced farther south than Hibernia, northern Florida, its winter 

 range being apparently restricted to the southern Atlantic and Gulf States. It would thus appear that the 

 respective migrations of the two forms intersect, though it may be that both occur together, to some extent, 

 during winter. The only examples of D. JiypocJirysea I have seen from any locality west of the Atlantic coast 

 (an adult and a young of the year from " Mississippi River, Louisiana," February 5 and 21, 1870, in Mr. Hen- 

 shaw's collection) are in every respect typical of that form. 



