CONNECTICUT WARBLER 521 



scattered throughout the swamp, an area of twenty acres or so. We 

 must have seen a dozen, perhaps twice that number, during the two 

 hours we spent there. On one occasion three jumped up from the 

 ground into the same shrub, and time after time from one end of the 

 swamp to the other we started single birds. A few days later we heard 

 the song here again. The Connecticut warblers were still present, 

 but we never actually saw a bird in the act of singing, although once 

 we heard the song from a shrub from which, a moment later, jumped 

 one of the birds. Nevertheless, because of the large number of Con- 

 necticut warblers gathered here on these two days, because we could 

 ascribe this song to no other species of bird, and because it fitted well 

 the published descriptions of the bird's song, we had little doubt in 

 our minds that we had heard Connecticut warblers singing during 

 their autumn migration. This was the only time in his life that Mr. 

 Faxon ever heard the song, although we often saw the birds after- 

 wards, and in all the years since I have never heard it again." 



Field marks. — The Connecticut is a rather large warbler and rather 

 plainly colored, with no white in the wings and tail, but with a pro- 

 nounced eye ring, white in the adult and buffy or yellowish in the 

 young. The adult male is olive-green above and yellow below, with 

 a broad, light-gray throat. The female and young are browner. 

 The adult male might be confused with the mourning warbler, but it 

 is larger, has no black on the breast and has a complete and conspicu- 

 ous eye ring ; the latter is the best field mark in any plumage, regardless 

 of age or season. 



Fall. — On its return to its winter quarters the Connecticut warbler 

 follows a partially different route from that taken in the spring. 

 From its breeding range in central Canada it migrates almost due 

 east to New England, largely avoiding the Mississippi Valley south 

 of northern Illinois and Ohio, and thence southward along the At- 

 lantic coast through Florida and the West Indies to its winter home 

 in South America. 



Mr. Trautman (1940) says of the fall migration in Ohio: "In this 

 migration the species was not recorded as frequently nor in as large 

 numbers as in spring, and seldom more than 3 birds were seen in 

 a day. It is probable that the species was as numerous as it was in 

 spring, since the nonsinging birds appeared in equal numbers in both 

 seasons. In fall this warbler was not confined to dense tangles of 

 remnant swamp forests, but also inhabited brushy, weedy, and fallow 

 fields." 



The following note from Dr. Winsor M. Tyler is typical of our 

 experience with this warbler in Massachusetts in the fall : "There used 

 to be a wooded swamp in Lexington, Mass., not unlike the region near 

 Fresh Pond where, in the 1870's, the Cambridge ornithologists often 



