456 BULLETIN 2 3, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



The quality Is only slightly musical and is distinctly sibilant or fric- 

 ative, with sounds like the consonants s or / running all through it. 

 It is not loud, and none of the notes is strongly accented. The average 

 number of notes per song is 16. Of 15 records of this song, 5 are made 

 up of single notes, 3 of 2-note phrases, while 7 begin with 2-note phrases 

 and end in single notes. Changes in pitch average about a tone, a 

 few songs being all on one pitch, and only 2 changing more than one 

 and a half tones. The pitch, I believe, ranges from A flat ' ' ' ' to 

 D ' ' ' ', a range of only 3 tones. Songs range from 11/5 to 2% seconds 

 in length. The number of notes per second varies from 8 to 12." 



The bird sings freely in New England during its northward mi- 

 gration, but I do not recall ever hearing the song in Florida in early 

 spring. 



Field mm^hs. — The distinctive mark of the two races of the palm 

 warblers is their chestnut crown. The wagging tail of the palm war- 

 blers, an almost constant movement, is a pronounced up and down 

 sweep, through a much longer arc than the twitching tail of the black- 

 poll and the prairie warblers. The two subspecies of the palm war- 

 bler are very similar in plumage. The most reliable point of difference 

 is the contrast in color between the yellowish-white breast and, by 

 comparison, the intense yellow of the under tail coverts in the western 

 race, a contrast the yellow palm lacks, its under parts being uni- 

 formly yellow. In the autumn, when the colors are fainter, it may 

 sometimes be impossible to identify the races surely in the field. 



Enemies. — Aside from the hazards to which its ground nests are 

 exposed and the dangers of its fairly long migration at the seasons, 

 both spring and fall, when the Accipiter hawks are moving, the yellow 

 palm warbler has no especial enemies as far as we know. 



Herbert Friedmann (1929 and 1934) says it is "a rare victim" of the 

 cowbird, and cites only four nests in which cowbirds' eggs have been 

 found. 



Fall. — The yellow palm warbler is often an abundant bird during 

 its fall migration along the Atlantic coast, generally frequenting the 

 birch thickets where plant lice abound, a favorite food of the autumn 

 warblers. Dr. Charles W. Townsend (1905) says: "On October 14th, 

 1900, in a violent northeast storm with rain, I found the Ipswich dunes 

 swarming with these birds." 



Winter. — Few yellow palm warblers leave the United States during 

 the winter. They are rare in Cuba (Barbour, 1943). Their chief 

 range in winter is in the Gulf States from Louisiana to Florida, but in 

 the latter State it is almost exclusively restricted to the west coast. 

 Hence its winter range is decidedly more to the westward and much 

 farther north than the range of the western race. 



