270 DISTRIBUTION OF THE CCERULEAN WARBLER 



currently attributed to New England, by myself as well as by 

 others. Nearly all the later citations to such effect, however, 

 have rested upon the appearance of the name in F. W. Put- 

 nam's List of the Birds of Essex County, Mass., published in 

 185G ; but Dr. Brewer " recently ascertained ))y careful enquiry " 

 that the species Mr. Putnam had in view was the Black-throated 

 Blue Warbler, D. ccerulescens. This left the bird without au- 

 thentic Massachusetts record, and caused Dr. Brewer, ignoring 

 his 1837 announcement, to deny the bird to New England in 

 1875. In 1874, in the "Birds of the Northwest", I simply que- 

 ried the occurrence of the species in that part of the country, 

 considering that Linsley's Connecticut record of 1843 needed 

 confirmation, though my other sources of information, such as 

 Lawrence's New York List of 1866, left me in no real doubt of 

 its presence in the Connecticut Valley — a fact fully confirmed 

 by Mr. Purdie's and Mr. Merriam's respective records above 

 cited. The only authoritative record I know of the occurrence 

 of the bird north of our boundary is that above cited, fur- 

 nished by Mr. Mcllwraith, of Hamilton, Canada West. In the 

 Middle States, the Ccerulean Warbler is certainly rare ; it is so 

 given by Dr. TurnbuU for Pennsylvania, and Dr. Prentiss and 

 I never saw it alive in the District of Columbia ; though it has 

 been got in this place on more than one occasion, the last being 

 an instance of which I am informed by Mr. L. P. Jouy, of Wash- 

 ington, who happens into my study with the information, by a 

 curious coincidence, as I pen this very article (October 16, 1877), 

 and who published the case in the number of " Field and Forest" 

 above cited, which appeared a few days afterward. 



The Coerulean Warbler entirely withdraws from the United 

 States in the fall. It is singular that we have no Mexican 

 record, and that our only West Indian one is from Cuba. For 

 aught that we know to the contrary, the bird makes for Central 

 America, and winters in Yucatan, Guatemala, the Isthmus, and 

 New Granada, even pushing as far in South America as the 

 Rio Napo. 



Good fresh observations respecting the nest, eggs, and breed- 

 ing habits of the Coerulean Warbler are wanted, as the present 

 generation of ornithologists knows nothing of these matters 

 but what it has inherited from the last one. 



