266 HABITS OF BLACK-THROATED GRAY WARBLER 



at Fort Whipple during two seasons. I found the bird common 

 there in the pine forests, and especially numerous during the 

 migrations ; but it was also seen through the summer, and un- 

 questionably breeds in that locality. It was tirst observed about 

 the 20th of April, and did not entirely disappear until toward 

 October. I generally saw it skipping with great agility through 

 the tops of lofty pines, at such height that I could scarcely tell 

 what bird it was until some well-directed shot, perhaps after a 

 tedious poking about with the gun held almost vertically upon 

 my shoulder, brought my victim dropping by stages from one 

 limb to another, and then with a long whirl through the clear 

 space between the lower branches to the ground, sometimes at 

 my very feet. My later spring specimens were some of them 

 in full nuptial attire, and the queer scraping notes which I sup- 

 posed to come from this species not seldom descended from the 

 leafy canopy where the endless chirpings of the Nuthatches, 

 Titmice, and other little birds were mingled with the rappings 

 of the Woodpeckers and the harsh, sudden outcries of the 

 rowdyish Jays. 



In the autumn, these Warblers appeared, of course, in larger 

 numbers, their ranks being recruited by new comers from the 

 north, en route to Mexico, land of the mezquite and of " war's 

 revolution"; and at the same season they were also more gener- 

 ally dispersed over the country, on the hillsides clad with scrub 

 oak, and even along the willow-fringed mountain-streams. Mr. 

 Heushaw's observations, very recently made at corresponding 

 latitudes in New Mexico, agree with mine. He found the 

 birds in June in the vicinity of Santa Fe, New Mexico, where 

 they frequented the growths of piuones and cedars that cov- 

 ered the dry foot-hills. The males were then iu worn plum- 

 age, as if already breeding — an indication confirmed by the 

 nonappearance of the females, who were no doubt too assid- 

 uous in their housekeeping to come much in the collector's 

 way. Mr. Ridgway had already found these birds in the East 

 Humboldt Mountains of Nevada, under precisely similar con- 

 ditions ; there they were abundant in piiion and cedar thickets, 

 where they certainly had bred, for he saw families of young 

 following their parents in July and August. In Colorado, says 

 Mr. Aiken, the birds are rather rare migrants, a few probably 

 leraaining to breed ; they frequent mesas and foot-hills covered 

 with low scrubby piSou, making their appearance about the first 

 of May, when the males precede the. females by a few days, and 



