NORTHERN BLACK-THROATED BLUE WARBLER 237 



few occasions the mortality was as high as one-third of the birds that 

 struck. 



On the night of January 26, 1886, two birds struck the light. These 

 were either wintering birds or extremely early migrants. 



Egg dates. — ^IVIassachusetts : 6 records. May 28 to July 5 ; 3 records, 

 June 2 to 8. 



New Hampshire : 17 records, June 3 to 22 ; 9 records, June 10 to 15. 



New York : 51 records, May 29 to June 20 ; 37 records, June 3 to 12, 

 indicating the height of the season. 



Pennsylvania : 57 records, May 25 to June 26; 32 records. May 30 to 

 June 6. 



North Carolina : 10 records. May 5 to June 22 ; 6 records, June 4 to 

 11. 



Virginia: 19 records. May 26 to June 18; 14 records. May 27 to 

 June 4 (Harris). 



DENDROICA CAERULESCENS CAIRNSI Cones 



CAIRNS' WARBLER 



Plate 31 



HABITS 



This local race of the black-throated blue warbler, breeding in the 

 southern Alleghenies, was named by Dr. Elliott Coues (1897) in honor 

 of its discoverer and original describer, John S. Cairns of Weaver- 

 ville, N. C. Dr. Coues, at that time, mentioned only the characters 

 of the male, but those of the female are fully as well, perhaps more 

 satisfactorily, marked than those of the male. Eidgway (1902) de- 

 scribes both very well and concisely as follows : 



"Similar to D. c. caerulescens^ but adult male darker above, espe- 

 cially the pileum, which is not lighter blue than the back, the latter 

 usually more or less spotted or clouded with black, sometimes chiefly 

 black, the pileum sometimes streaked with black ; adult female darker 

 and duller olive above and less yellowish beneath, with the olive of 

 flanks darker and more strongly contrasted with the pale olive- 

 yellowish of abdomen." In discussing its distribution, he was unable 

 to define its breeding range with any degree of accuracy ; and adds in 

 a footnote : "On the whole, the form is not a very satisfactory one, one 

 of the two characters on which it was based (smaller size) failing 

 altogether {D. c. cairnsi averaging slightly larger, in fact, than D. c. 

 caerulescens) n, and the other only partially so, since many specimens 

 of D. c. cairnsi have little if any black on the back, while many of 

 D. c. caerulescens have quite as much as the average amount shown in 

 D. c. cairnsi.''^ 



