442 BULLETIN 20 3, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



blotches and/or a few scrawls of black. Generally the spots are con- 

 centrated and form a wreath around the large end. The eggs of one 

 set in the Museum of Comparative Zoology are creamy w^hite, very 

 delicately speckled with "wood brown," and one egg is almost immacu- 

 late. The measurements of 15 eggs average 16.7 by 13.1 millimeters; 

 the eggs showing the four extremes measure 17.5 by 13.2, 16.5 by 13.7, 

 and 16.0 by 12.7 millimeters (Harris). 



Young. — Nothing seems to have been reported on incubation, brood- 

 ing or care of the young nestlings of the western palm warbler, but 

 Zirrer writes to me : "Once out of the nest, the young birds sit scat- 

 tered on convenient branches, practically always a tamarack, and 

 as a rule not more than 4 to 8 feet above the ground, waiting for the 

 old birds to bring food. Before long, however, they begin to move 

 with a creeping or sliding motion along the branches, usually from 

 near the end of the branch toward the trunk ; they fly, at first clumsily, 

 from there to the nearest convenient branch or twig and creep or slide 

 again, all the while picking at something. Ours here must have been 

 infested with vermin, probably Mallophaga, as they would stop every 

 once in a while and pick vigorously at the feathers and especially 

 under the wrings. Although they are soon able to find their own food, 

 the old birds still feed them occasionally until the end of August. 



Plumages. — The plumages and molts of the western palm warbler 

 are apparently the same as those of the yellow palm warbler, to which 

 the reader is referred. The western bird always has less yellow than 

 the eastern. 



Food. — Zirrer (MS.) writes : "Although I have watched these birds 

 every summer since the spring of 1940, I am still unable to tell much 

 about their food. I see them occasionally find and eat small green 

 caterpillars, but most of the time I see them picking something from 

 the twigs of the tamaracks without being able to tell what it is, al- 

 tliough I have examined a number of twigs. I see them also hang 

 on and examine cones on tamaracks two and more years old, even 

 those on dead, dry trees, but what they find there I am unable to say. 

 They like various berries, especially raspberries, how^ever." 



A. H. Howell (1932), referring to Florida, says: "R. W. Williams 

 at Tallahassee, in October, 1904, observed large numbers of Palm 

 Warblers feeding on cotton worms. F. M. Uhler, in studying the 

 bird's food habits in the celery fields around Sanford, found the de- 

 structive celery leaf-tyer in nearly all the 23 stomachs examined, 

 amounting to 73 percent of the total contents. Other items found 

 in the stomachs were flies, 12.7 per cent; Lepicloptera (mainly cut- 

 worms), 6 per cent; and Hymenoptera, 7 per cent." 



Robert H. Coleman (Judd, 1902) wrote to the Biological Survey 

 that he counted the number of insects that one of these birds caught 



