HABITS OF BLACK-THROATED GRAY WARBLER 265 



g^enerally arrives from the south early in April, is commonly 

 found in oak forests, and is rather abundant in the vicinity of 

 Fort Steilacoom. Dr. Cooper saw a pair at Puget Sound which 

 seemed to have a nest, but he did not succeed in finding it. 

 About the time that these observations were made, we had 

 sudden word of the species from a distant point in Mexico ; for 

 M. A. Boucard secured specimens in Oaxaca, Mexico, as Dr. 

 Sclater soon recorded. To this very day these advices remain 

 the northernmost and about the most southerly we have ; for 

 the Black-throated Gray has never been traced north of the 

 region in which it was originally discovered, nor yet through 

 Mexico into Central America. Prof. F. Sumichrast has, how- 

 ever, taken it in Orizaba ; and there is much reason to suppose 

 that its actual range is not less extensive than that of either 

 occidentalis or townsendl. As to its longitudinal dispersion, we 

 simply note its spread in suitable forest-clad country from the 

 eastern bases of the Eocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, and 

 may next endeavor to trace its movements within this area from 

 the rather fragmentary indicia we command. 



In California, the late Dr. A. L. Heermann took a few speci- 

 mens near Sacramento City, and also on the mountain range 

 between the Calaveras and Mokelumne Eivers, during the au- 

 tumnal migration of 1852, when the bird was found gleaning 

 its insect food in the upper branches of oak trees, and had notes 

 which the observer likened to those of a locust. In the same 

 State, the birds api)eared to Dr. Cooper to reach San Diego 

 about the 20th of April, in small flocks, migrating northward, 

 and were not seen after this month. Dr. Suckley's remark of 

 their coming so much farther north in the beginning of the 

 same month is somewhat at variance with the experiences of 

 others, and I suspect he may have meant to say May, not April. 

 During their passage across California, according to Dr. Cooper, 

 the birds haunt low bushes along the coast; but afterward, 

 he says, they take to the deciduous oaks when the leaves begin 

 to grow, early in May, at which time the birds reach the Colum- 

 bia Eiver. This record of migration squares as to date with 

 what is known of the movements of the species in other longi- 

 tudes ; but the supposed absence of the bird from California 

 after April must bo cautiously regarded. 



For we have plenty of evidence that the Black-throated Gray 

 nestles all through the mountains of corresponding latitudes 

 east of California. And first for my own observations, made 



