288 BULLETIN 203, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Wash.; D. E. Brown took two males on January 9, 1921, and saw 

 "a number of others" ; and a week later he collected a female. These 

 were doubtless, winter casuals, as the summer residents and transients 

 pass through Oregon in October or earlier. 



Mrs. Allen writes to me from Berkeley, Calif. : "The Townsend 

 Warbler is an abundant fall and spring migrant and a common winter 

 visitant. In Berkeley the average date of arrival in the fall is Sep- 

 tember 28 (18 records), the earliest August 27, 1931. They are most 

 abundant during October, after which they are reduced to winter 

 numbers." 



Henshaw (1875) writes: 



At Mount Graham, Ariz., in September, this warbler was found in considerable 

 numbers, though the few taken were procured with no little diflSculty, for they 

 almost invariably were seen in the tops of the tallest trees, where a glimpse 

 might now and then be had of them as they dashed out after flying insects, 

 or flew from tree to tree in their always onward migratory course. The tracts 

 of pine woods they shunned entirely, but affected the firs and spruces, and 

 their flights from point to point were regulated and made longer and shorter 

 by the presence or absence of these trees. Their movements were exceedingly 

 rapid ; a moment spent in passing in and out the interlacing branches, a few 

 hurried sweeps at their extremities, and they were off to the next adjoining 

 tree to repeat the process again and again till lost sight of in the dense woods. 



Winter. — A few straggling Townsend's warblers spend the winter 

 occasionally as far north as Oregon and Washington ; the species is 

 fairly common from central California southward; but the main 

 body of the species retires to Mexico and Central America. Mrs. 

 Allen tells me that they are quite abundant in the redwood trees of 

 California in winter; and in midwinter, she has "many records of 

 their coming under the eaves of the house, where they seem to be 

 taking spiders." 



Dr. Skutch has contributed the following account: "Townsend's 

 warblers winter in vast numbers in the highlands of Guatemala . From 

 their arrival in September until shortly before the departure of the 

 last in May, I considered these the most abundant of all birds, whether 

 resident or migratory, between 7,000 and 10,000 feet above sea-level 

 on the Sierra de Tecpan in west-central Guatemala. Here they were 

 almost equally numerous in the forest of pine, oak, alder and arbutus 

 and in the nearly pure stands of lofty cypress trees [Gupressus hen- 

 thamii) on the mountain-top. But they are widespread over the 

 Guatemalan altos, from 5,000 to 10,000 feet above sea-level, and even 

 pass the winter at considerably lower altitudes, where pine woods 

 locally replace the broad-leafed forest prevalent in these less elevated 

 regions. Thus on the Finca Moca, a huge coffee plantation Ij'ing on 

 the southern side of the Volcan Atitlan, a local stand of pine reaches 

 to about 3,000 feet above sea-level. Among these pines I found Town- 

 send's warblers wintering down to at least 3,400 feet, in company with 



