508 BULLETIN 2 3, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



edged with deep olive-green, the wing coverts with wood-brown. Be- 

 low, pale raw umber-brown, Naples-yellow on the abdomen and 

 crissum." 



A partial postjuvenal molt in July, involving the contour plumage 

 and the wing coverts but not the rest of the wings or the tail, pro- 

 duces the first winter plumages, in which the sexes are recognizable. 

 In this plumage, the young male is "above, olive-green including the 

 wing coverts. Below, including superciliary stripe, bright canary- 

 yellow. The forehead, crown, lores and auriculars are partly black 

 much veiled by smoke-gray edgings." The first nuptial plumage is 

 acquired by a partial prenuptial molt "which involves a part of the 

 head, chin and throat, but no other areas. The black crown with 

 plumbeous edgings, the black lores, auriculars and a short extension 

 on the sides of the neck are assumed, together with the yellow feathers 

 of the chin and superciliary stripe. Young and old become indis- 

 tinguishable." 



A complete molt in July produces the adult winter plumage, which 

 "differs from first winter in the crown being grayer, the black areas 

 more defined and the edgings clear plumbeous gray, veiling the black 

 much less." He says that the adult nuptial plumage is "acquired 

 apparently by a partial prenuptial moult, as in the young bird, al- 

 though wear alone may modify the winter plumage after the first 

 year." Females differ from males in all the later plumages, the black 

 markings being duller and more restricted. 



Food. — No extensive study of the food of the Kentucky warbler 

 is available. Forbush (1929) says: "The food of this bird consists in 

 part of grasshoppers and locusts, caterpillars and the larvae of other 

 insects, moths, plant-lice, grubs, spiders and other animal food that it 

 finds chiefly on or near the ground, or in bushes, vines or the lower 

 parts of trees. In summer it takes some berries." A. H. Howell 

 (1924) reports that the stomachs of two birds, taken in Alabama, 

 contained remains of bugs, beetles, ants, and other Hymenoptera. 



Behavior. — The Kentucky warbler is essentially a ground warbler, 

 and, like others of similar habits, it walks gracefully along rather 

 than hopping; it shares to some extent with the waterthrushes the 

 habit of bobbing its tail, though this habit is no more pronounced 

 than it is with the ovenbird. John Burroughs (1871) classes him 

 with the ground warblers and says that "his range is very low, indeed 

 lower than that of any other species with which I am acquainted. 

 He is on the ground nearly all the time, moving rapidly along, taking 

 spiders and bugs, overturning leaves, peeping under sticks and into 

 crevices and every now and then leaping up eight or ten inches, to 

 take his game from beneath some overhanging leaf or branch. Thus 

 each species has its range more or less marked. Draw a line three 



