2 BULLETIN 2 03, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



[Author's Notes : When I asked Dr. Tyler to contribute these re- 

 marks we discussed Professor Cooke's (1904) theory of trans-Gulf 

 migration, which has been generally accepted until recently, when it 

 was challenged by George C. Williams (1945). This paper started a 

 discussion in which George H. Lowery, Jr. (1945) , has taken a promi- 

 nent part, and of which we have not yet heard the last. Routes of 

 migration from South America to the United States are evidently 

 well established through the West Indies and the Bahamas to the 

 southeastern States ; across the Caribbean to Jamaica, Cuba, and Flor- 

 ida; through Central America and directly across the Gulf from 

 Yucutan to the Gulf States; through eastern Mexico and Texas; and 

 through western Mexico to the southwestern States. Professor Cooke 

 was probably correct in assuming that the majority of wood warblers 

 breeding in eastern North America migrate directly across the Carib- 

 bean or the Gulf. Some species may confine themselves to only one 

 of the routes named, but we need more data to say just which species 

 uses what route.] 



The literature contains descriptions of several warblers not recog- 

 nized as established species by the A.O.U. Check-List (1931) . Some, 

 described and illustrated by older writers such as Wilson and Audu- 

 bon, cannot be identified; others are presumably hybrids; and one, 

 Sylvia autumnalis Wilson, the autumn warbler, is clearly the black- 

 poll in fall plumage. The first category includes Dendroica carbon- 

 ata (Audubon), the carbonated warbler, of which the Check-List 

 says "the published plates may have been based to some extent on 

 memory"; D. montana (Wilson), the blue mountain warbler, which 

 is "known only from the plates of Audubon and Wilson" ; and Wil- 

 sonia (?) microcephala (Ridgway), the small-headed flycatcher, of 

 which it says : "Known only from the works of Wilson and Audubon 

 whose specimens came from New Jersey and Kentucky respectively. 

 There is some question whether they represent the same species." 



In the second category is Vermivora cmcinnatiensis (Langdon), 

 the Cincinnati warbler, described in 1880. "The unique type is re- 

 garded as a hybrid between Vermivora pinus (Linnaeus) and Oporor- 

 nis formosa (Wilson)." Recently, in a letter dated August 3, 1948, 

 Dr, George M. Sutton reports to Mr. Bent the discovery of a second 

 Cincinnati warbler, taken in Michigan on May 28, 1948. He says: 

 "Its bill and feet are large for Vermivora and its under tail coverts 

 proportionately too long for that genus. It has only a faint sug- 

 gestion of wing-barring and the merest shadow of a pattern on the 

 outer rectrices. One of its most interesting and beautiful characters 

 is the gray tipping of the feathers at the rear of the crown, as in 

 O. formosus. The effect is very unusual, for the gray-tipped feathers 

 are yellow. It is, in short, obviously a cross between Vermivora and 

 Oporornis.^'' 



