510 BULLETIN 203, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



A. D. Du Bois tells me that the song reminds him of the pe-to note 

 of the tufted titmouse ; Francis H. Allen gives me his impression of it 

 as sounding like wittly wittly wittly wittly wittly wittly; other re- 

 corded renderings are similar, but those I have cited are suflicient to 

 give a good idea of the striking and characteristic song of the Ken- 

 tucky warbler. 



Field marks. — The olive-green upper parts, with no white in wings 

 or tail, the under parts wholly bright yellow, and the black markings 

 on the crown and sides of the head and neck are all distinctive field 

 marks. In females and fall birds the colors are duller, and the black 

 markings are more restricted and veiled but they show similar 

 patterns. 



Enemies. — This warbler is a common victim of the cowbird. Dr. 

 Friedmann (1929) had 65 records, and says: "In Greene County, 

 Pennsylvania, the Kentucky Warbler seems to be the commonest vic- 

 tim of the Cowbird. Jacobs found eggs of the parasite in 47 nests 

 of this warbler, as follows : 39 nests with 1 Cowbird egg each ; 7 nests 

 with 2 Cowbird eggs each ; 1 nest with 3 Cowbird eggs." 



Snakes and prowling predators have been known to rob the nests 

 of this and other ground-nesting species. Harold S. Petere (1936) 

 recorded only one external parasite as found on this warbler, a tick 

 {Haemnphysalis lepo7is-palustris) . 



Winter. — Dr. Skutch contributes the following: "Of all the wood 

 warblers, resident or migratory, the Kentucky warbler is the species 

 most often seen in the undergrowth of the heavy lowland forests of 

 Central America. The one member of the family that breeds among 

 the loftier forests of the lowlands, the buff-rumped warbler, haunts 

 the rocky streambeds, and is rarely found among the undergrowth 

 at a distance from water. The migrant warblers that winter in some 

 abundance in these forests, as the chestnut-sided warbler and the 

 American redstart, are birds of the tree-tops. This leaves the Ken- 

 tucky warbler, with occasionally a worm-eating warbler, to represent 

 its family in the company of antbirds, manakins, wood-wrens, and 

 wintering russet-backed thrushes in the underwood. 



"Not that the Kentucky warbler is abundant in these forests, even 

 at the height of the northern winter. I have rarely seen as many as 

 two, and still more rarely three, in a day's wandering through the 

 forest. Nor is it restricted to the forest ; for it haunts also the heavier, 

 more humid second-growth. But in either habitat, it is always seen 

 moving restlessly through the vegetation near the ground, often cling- 

 ing to slender upright stems, ant-bird-fashion. It is always alone, 

 unless in chance company with small birds of other kinds; it shows 

 no true sociability at this season. It is silent, save for its reiterated, 

 sharp call note. 



