Fig. 136. Magnolia Warbler. From 



LAND BIRDS. 605 



Distribution. — Eastern North America, west to the base of the Rocky- 

 Mountains, and casually to British Columbia, breeding from northern 

 New England, northern New York, and northern Michigan, to Hudson 

 Bay Territory and southward in the Alleghanies to Pennsylvania. In 

 winter, Bahamas, Cuba, and south through eastern Mexico to Panama. 



This exquisite little bird comes to us from the south about the first 

 week in May and passes slowly northward, some lingering in middle Mich- 

 igan until the very last of the month. We 

 have no record of its arrival in the state 

 before the first of May and it rarely appears 

 as early as the second or third of the month. 

 The average time of arrival at Ann Arbor 

 for twenty-five years is given by N. A. Wood 

 as May 9, and it reaches Lansing a few days 

 later, and the northern counties of the state 

 between the 20th and 30th of the month. 



Returning in autumn it is most abundant ''"ijoffmaniT's" Guide."* "iiouglitoii; 

 about the middle of September, but numbers *^'"^'" * ^'''■ 

 begin to move southward late in August and some Unger, even in the 

 middle counties, until about the first of October. We have records of its 

 striking Michigan lighthouses on thirty-two different dates, and it has fig- 

 ured regularly in the reports from Spectacle Reef Light, Lake Huron. 

 By far the greater number of these dates fall in the last half of Sep- 

 tember, the latest being October 2, 1893. 



The Magnolia or Black and Yellow Warbler is always an abundant 

 migrant, and is a somewhat scarce summer resident over the northern 

 half of the state. Apparently very few nests have been found, yet the 

 birds have been noted here and there by a dozen different observers during 

 the nesting season, and several observers speak of it as nesting regularly 

 and abunclantly in their vicinity. This is the report of 0. B. Warren 

 in Marquette county, and Ed Van Winkle in Delta county, while the 

 writer found it fairly common about Little Traverse Bay during the summer 

 of 1904, and also on the Beaver Lslands the same season. Mr. S. E. White 

 found it a characteristic summer bird of Mackinac Island, and Dr. Wolcott 

 found it in summer at Charlevoix, where it doubtless breeds. It probably 

 is most abundant along the Lake Superior shore, from IMarquette to the 

 Sault, and the writer fovnid it in the summer of 1903, at IMarquette, Munis- 

 ing, Grand Marais, and near Sault Ste. Marie. In July 1906 Mr. E. A. 

 Doolittle found several nests of young on Grand Island, Munising Harbor. 

 We have no nesting records for the southern half of the state, and if it 

 ever spends the summer south of the Saginaw-Grand Valley it must be 

 rarely. About the head waters of the Manistee. ]\Iuskegon and Au Sable 

 rivers, in Roscommon, Crawford, Oscoda and Otsego counties, the ])ird 

 has been o])served frequently in summer and must nest regularly, l)ut 

 apparently not in large numbers. 



The nest is placed usually in an evergreen l)ush or tree at no great height 

 from the ground, in most cases less than ten feet, but occasionally some- 

 what higher, and more rarely still on a horizontal branch at a considerable 

 height. Nests are frequently found only two or three feet from the ground 

 in spruces and hemlocks and usually well hidden in the thick foliage. 

 The nest is built of grasses, twigs, and various plant fibres and strips of 

 bark, and is usually lined with fine roots which are almost always black. 



