612 MICHIGAN BIRD LIFE. 



are informed by Mr. G. A. Abbott of Chicago that a friend of his observed 

 the Bhicl<-poll Warbler on Macldnac Island on about half a dozen occasions 

 between June 28 and July 15, 1906, but that no nests were found. 



The food consists mainly of insects and the bird eats immense numbers 

 of span-worms and plant-lice at all times of year. In the fall they also 

 eat some seeds and berries, but they are mainly insectivorous and are 

 expert flycatchers, taking much of their food on the wing. Forbes found 

 that two-thirds of the food of those taken in an orchard overrun with 

 cankerworms consisted of those worms, while 19 percent consisted of 

 beetles, 4 percent of ants, and 5 percent of gnats. 



The usual nesting grounds of this species are the evergreen forests of 

 the far north, where they frequent the edges of the coniferous swamps 

 and place the nests usually on the horizontal branches of the thick ever- 

 greens at five to ten feet from the ground. The nest is similar to that of 

 the Bay-breast just described, but perhaps contains more grass and weed 

 stems. The eggs are four or five, white or buffy white, speckled with 

 brown and lilac, occasionally with black specks. They average .72 by .53 

 inches. 



The song of the Black-poll is not noteworthy. While migrating its 

 common call sounds like " sit-sit-sit " or "seet-seet-seet," repeated rather 

 rapidly, and the notes rising in regular gradation. 



TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION. 



Adult male: Entire top of head coal-black, sometimes with a few ashy streaks; rest 

 of upper parts gray or olive-gray, streaked with black; sides of head and neck white or 

 nearly so, separated from the white throat by a chain of black spots and streaks which 

 begins on the chin and extends along either side to the flanks; breast and belly white, 

 unspotted; two white wing-bars; two or three outer tail-feathers Avith rather small white 

 patches on inner webs near tip; upper mandible black, lower mandible much ligliter. 

 Female similar, but witliout the black cap, the upper parts olive-gray streaked with black; 

 under parts less sharply streaked than in male. Young of the year entirely unlike tlie 

 adult; upper parts olive or olive-gray more or less streaked with dusky; under parts soiled 

 or yellowish-white, with indistinct gray streaks; under tail-coverts white; wing and tail 

 markings as in adult, but tertials margined with white, and inner primaries often tippetl 

 with the same. 



Length 5 to 5.75 inches; wing 2.80 to 2.90; tail 2.05 to 2.25; female slightly smaller. 



Note. — The young of this sj^ecies in autumn is separable with difficulty from the Bay- 

 breasted Warbler of the same age, but the present species always has white under tail- 

 coverts while those of the Bay-breast arc always distinctly yellowish or Ijuffy. 



279. Blackburnian Warbler. Dendroica fusca (Mull). (662) 



Synonyms: Hemlock Warbler, Torch-bird, Fire-ljrand. — Motacilla fusca, Midler, 

 1776. — Sylvia or Sylvicola blackbrnniia;, of the older ornithologists, Dendroica or DendriTca 

 blackburnise, of the more recent writers. — Sylvia or Sylvicola parus of Bonaparte, Nuttall 

 and Aubudon. 



Mainly black and white, the throat and a spot on top of head, bright 

 yellow, orange or flame-color. A large white patch on the wing and nearly 

 all the tail-feathers white marked. 



Distribution. — Eastern North America, west to eastern Kansas and 

 IManitoba, breeding from .the southern Alleghanies, Massachusetts, and 

 Michigan, northward to Labrador. In winter, south to the Bahamas, 

 eastern Mexico, Central America, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. 



This perhaps is our most brilliant warbler, and although frequently 

 seen during migration does not appear to be abundant anywhere. Occa- 



