478 BULLETIN 203, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



clear water was flowing slowly among the stumps and upturned roots 

 of fallen trees ; there, within a radius of 100 yards, we found nests of 

 this and the Louisiana waterthrush and the winter wren, a curious 

 mingling of northern and southern species ; the musical voices of these 

 three famous singers produced a concert that can better be imagined 

 than described. 



Todd (1940) says that at higher altitudes in western Pennsyl- 

 vania, it "is sometimes found along swift mountain streams, but as a 

 general rule it favors isolated pools of standing water in the woods — 

 the kind of habitat that does not attract the other species at all. 

 Rhododendron swamps are favorite haunts." Prof. Maurice Brooks 

 (1940) says that, in the central Allegheny Mountain region, "this 

 species, found along some of the mountain streams and in swamps at 

 high altitudes, reaches its known southern breeding limits at Cran- 

 berry Glades. * * * It is confined to the Canadian and upper 

 Alleghenian zones, nesting as low as 2,500 feet at Cranesville swamp in 

 West Virginia and Maryland. * * * These warblers show a pref- 

 erence for streams that are lined with spruce, hemlock, or rhododen- 

 dron, or a combination of these, but they may occassionally be found 

 in northern hardwood forest." 



SpHng. — From its wide winter range in the West Indies and in 

 northern South America this species apparently migrates northward 

 over two widely separated routes, both east and west of the Gulf of 

 Mexico, but as most of the migration records do not distinguish be- 

 tween the two races and are seldom based on collected specimens, it is 

 impossible to define the routes followed by the two subspecies. It is 

 reasonably certain, however, that the birds that winter in the West 

 Indies and migrate northward along the Atlantic Coast States are the 

 eastern form, although it is possible that the birds of this race that 

 winter in British Guiana may migrate through the Antilles to Florida 

 and northward. We would naturally expect to find that most of the 

 birds that take the western route through Central America, Mexico, 

 and Texas, are of the western race, notahilis; but typical novebora- 

 censis has been taken on migration along the coast of Mexico. I have 

 seen waterthrushes migrating along the coast of Texas, but I have 

 taken no specimens. Birds that take the western route apparently 

 migrate northward through the Mississippi Valley. 



Nesting.— My friend Harry S. Hathaway, who had reported (1906) 

 the nesting of the northern waterthrush in Eliode Island, showed me 

 in 1908 what is probably the most southeastern locality in New Eng- 

 land where this species breeds, a corner of Kingston swamp, the main 

 portion of which was originally a cedar swamp. Most of the cedar 

 had been cut off and was then replaced by a heavy forest of maples, 

 large swamp white oaks, red oaks, beeches, gray and yellow birches, 



