642 BULLETIN 203, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Fall. — This warbler seems to be more abundant, or more conspicu- 

 ous, on the fall migration east of the Rocky Mountains, where it is 

 often the commonest of all the wood warblers, even as far east as 

 western Nebraska. 



'Winter. — Of its winter haunts in Mexico, Dr. Beebe (1905) writes: 



The Pileolated Warbler and the Western Gnatcatcher were two small friends 

 which we first met at the edge of the barranca. They were cheerful little bodies, 

 forever busy searching leaves and twigs and flowers for tiny insects. Perhaps 

 to this unflagging activity was due the fact that they seemed able to find a 

 substantial living in ail sorts and conditions of places. The Pileolated Warbler — 

 eo like our Wilson Black-cap, but of brighter yellow — never became common, 

 and yet in every list of birds we made, whether of upland, marsh, cactus desert, 

 barranca, or tropical jungle, he was sure to have a place. He was not particu- 

 lar as to his winter home, but found everywhere enough to keep his black- 

 crowned little head busy picking and picking, interpolating a sharp chip! now 

 and then, between mouthfuls. 



In El Salvador, according to Dickey and van Rossem (1938), "the 

 northern pileolated warbler was found to be a rather common winter 

 visitor between the elevations of 3,500 and 8,500 feet. '" * * In 

 its winter home this warbler is chiefly an inhabitant of low growth 

 beneath the forest. Coffee groves are particularly favored in the 

 lower elevations. On Los Esesmiles many were noted in the cloud 

 forest, but there were even more in the arid associations such as oak 

 scrub, bracken beneath the pines, and blackberry tangles along small 

 watercourses." 



WILSONIA PUSILLA CHRYSEOLA Ridgway 



GOLDEN PILEOLATED WARBLER 



Plates 77, 78 



HABITS 



This brilliantly golden race of the pileolated warbler is confined 

 in the breeding season to the Pacific coast district, from southern 

 British Columbia to southern California, mainly west of the mountain 

 ranges. Ridgway (1902) describes it as similar to Wilson's warbler, 

 "but slightly smaller and much more brightly colored; olive-green 

 of upper parts much more yellowish, almost olive-yellow in extreme 

 examples; yellow of forehead and superciliary region (especially the 

 former) inclining more or less to orange ; yellow of under parts purer, 

 more intense." 



Samuel F. Rathbun tells me that in western Washington this is 

 "probably the most common of all the warblers and occurs all through 

 the region, from the foothills of the Cascades to the Pacific Ocean." 



In the Lassen Peak region of California, according to Grinnell, 

 Dixon, and Linsdale (1930), "this race of pileolated warbler in sum- 



