608 BULLETIN 203, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



limbs, and flying out now and then for a short distance to snap up an insect, which 

 was instantly given to one or the other of the several young that, with beseech- 

 ing notes and cries, followed the old one about as it moved from one part of the 

 tree to another. * ♦ * 



Just a month later [in August], on visiting Mount Graham, I not only saw 

 the species again, but it proved to be a common bird of this locality, flocks 

 of ten or fifteen not being unusual among the pines and spruces; it frequented 

 these trees almost exclusively, only rarely being seen on the bushes that fringed 

 the streams. Its habits are a rather strange compound, now resembling those 

 of Warblers, again recalling the Redstarts, but more often perhaps bringing to 

 mind the less graceful motions of the familiar Titmice. Their favorite hunting 

 places appeared to be the extremities of the limbs of the spruces, over the 

 branches of which they passed with quick motion, and a peculiar and constant 

 sidewise jerk of the tail. 



When thus engaged, especially when high overhead, they might easily be 

 passed by, as a busy group of Titmice intent only on satisfying their hunger. 

 They appear to obtain most of their food from the branches, seizing the insects 

 when at rest; but they are abundantly able to take their prey on the wing, 

 and accomplish this much after the style of the Redstarts. Their disposition 

 seems to prompt them to sociability with other species, and occasionally I 

 found them accompanying the Audubon's Warblers, and imitating them in 

 their short flights from tree to tree, occasionally paying flying visits to the 

 fallen logs and even to the ground. 



Dr. Walter P. Taylor tells me that the red-faced warbler is not 

 shy, and "is characterized by a curiosity that usually discloses it to 

 view and enables one to really see it much more easily than is the case 

 with many or most other warblers." He saw one hawking for insects, 

 making two sorties in the air while he watched it; it has a peculiar 

 "flitty" flight. The birds that he saw in the Catalina Mountains 

 stayed more in the aspens than in the pines. But he noted one in the 

 Chiricahua Mountains in the oak brush just below the jjines. 



Voice. — Dr. Taylor refers to the song in his notes as quite close to 

 that of the yellow warbler; he calls it a whistled song with variations, 

 "a tink a fink a tinh tsee tsee tswee tsweej)^'' and says that it is "more 

 ringing and bell-like than that of Grace's warbler, which is often as- 

 sociated with it in the yellow pines." He says that the cMj) call-note 

 is conspicuous, and he mentions another note as 'psst. Henshaw 

 (1875) says: "Save in being rather louder and harsher, their chirps 

 resemble the notes of the Yellow-rump Warblers." 



Field marhs. — A gray bird with a black cap, a red face and throat, 

 a white rump, and white wing bars, could not be mistaken for anything 

 but a red-faced warbler. No other North American bird looks at all 

 like it. 



Winter. — Dr. Alexander F. Skutch contributes the following notes : 

 "On the Sierra de Tecpan, in west-central Guatemala, the red-faced 

 warbler wintered in small numbers from September 13 to March, 

 chiefly in the mixed forests of pine, oak, alder, arbutus and other 

 broad-leafed trees, between 7,000 and 9,000 feet above sea level. These 



