504 BULLETIN 2 3, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Carolina, but it is rare east of the Alleghenies in the southeastern 

 States. 



The Kentucky warbler is a woodland bird, a lover of deep shade 

 and dense, damp thickets. Ridgway (1889) says that it "is one of the 

 most abundant of birds in the rich woods of southern Illinois. As 

 far north as Wabash, Lawrence, and Richland counties, it is even 

 more abundant than the Golden-crowned Thrush, though the two 

 usually inhabit different locations, the latter preferring, as a rule, 

 the dryer upland woods, while the present species is most abundant in 

 the rich woods of the bottom-lands." 



Franklin L. Burns wrote to Dr. Chapman (1907) from Berwyn, 

 Pennsylvania : "It is here an inhabitant of the overgrown clearings, 

 swampy thickets, and the borders of woodland ; a bird of the south, 

 loving the luxuriant undergrowths of spicewood, ferns, mandrake, 

 skunk cabbage, and other shade-loving plants of rank growth." 



Andrew Allison wrote to Dr. Chapman (1907) that, in Mississippi, 

 this warbler inhabits "undergrowth in damp, or, at least, heavily 

 shaded, woods. It may frequent the thickets of rose-bay {lUicium) 

 and the tangle of bamboo briers on the Gulf coast, the varied tangled 

 growth along the creeks and rivers of the higher regions, or the brakes 

 of switch-cane; but it always selects a low, thick growth, where it 

 feeds almost entirely on the ground." 



In the central Allegheny Mountain region, according to Prof. 

 Maurice Brooks (1940), "the birds seem at home in a number of 

 forest types, southern mixed hardwoods, scrub and pitch pine mix- 

 tures, oak-hickory, and northern hardwoods. * * * As with 

 many other sylvan birds, ravines seem especially to attract them." 



Spring. — From its winter home, from southern Mexico to Colombia, 

 the Kentucky warbler moves northward mainly in April. While a 

 few individuals may cross from Yucatan and Cuba to Florida, it is 

 evidently rather rare on that side of the Gulf of Mexico. The main 

 migration route of the great bulk of these birds is northward and 

 northeastward through Texas to the Mississippi Valley, where its 

 center of abundance in summer is in the bottom-land forests of the 

 great rivers, mainly west of the Alleghenies and east of the great 

 plains. M. A. Frazar (1881) saw "large numbers" of Kentucky 

 warblers migrating across the Gulf of Mexico, when his ship was 

 about 30 miles south of the mouth of the Mississippi River ; they had 

 apparently come from Yucatan and were flying due north. 



Nesting. — Dr. Alexander F. Skutch writes to me: "A nest found 

 near Baltimore, Md., on May 31, 1934, was concealed among a vigorous 

 stand of SanicuJa niciHlandica in low and moist but not swampy ground 

 in light woods. The bottom of the nest was about 2 inches above the 

 ground. In form, the structure was a bulky, open cup. The very 



