BLACK-FRONTED AUDUBON'S WARBLER 273 



Early dates of fall arrival are : Calif ornia— San Diego, September 

 2. Texas— Fort Davis, September 9. Sonora— Las Cuevas, Septem- 

 ber 3. Guatemala — Chichicastenango, November 16. 



Banding. — An Audubon's warbler that was banded at Santa Cruz, 

 Calif., on February IT, 1931, was found dead November 5, 1931, at 

 Glenwood, Calif. Another, banded at Altadena, Calif., on December 

 1, 1935, was retrapped at the same station on February 13, 1940, being 

 then nearly 5 years old, at the least. 



Casual records. — ^A specimen of Audubon's warbler was collected 

 at Cambridge, Mass., on November 15, 1876. Another was collected 

 at West Chester, Pa., November 8, 1889. In Ohio one was closely 

 watched at Cleveland April 30 and May 3, 1931 ; and a second one at 

 Rickmond on October 5, 1941. On April 28, 1928, one was closely 

 watched at Minneapolis, Minn. 



Egg dates. — California: 53 records. May 11 to July 30; 28 records, 

 June 13 to 25, indicating the height of the season. 



Colorado : 10 records, June 18 to July 6 ; 5 records, June 19 to 29. 



Washington: 11 records, April 19 to June 29; 5 records, May 14 to 

 June 13. 



DENDROICA AUDUBONI NIGRIFRONS (Brewster) 



BLACK-FRONTED AUDUBON'S WARBLER 



HABITS 



The black-fronted Audubon's warbler was originally described by 

 William Brewster (1889) as a distinct species, based on a series of 

 five specimens collected by M. A. Frazar in the Sierra Madre Moun- 

 tains of Chihuahua, Mexico, in June and July, 1888. He gave as its 

 characters : "Male similar to D. auditJboni but with the forehead and 

 sides of the crown and head nearly uniform black, the interscapulars 

 so closely spotted that the black of their centres exceeds in extent the 

 bluish ashy on their edges and tips, the black of the breast patch 

 wholly unmixed with lighter color. Female with the general color- 

 ing, especially on the head, darker than in female auduboni; the dark 

 markings of the breast and back coarser and more numerous; the 

 entire pileum, including the yellow crown patch, spotted finely but 

 thickly with slaty black." He admits that it is closely related to D. 

 auduboni^ "so closely in fact that the two may prove to intergrade," 

 but he found no indications of such intergradation. Later, however, 

 Leverett M. Loomis (1901) called attention to the fact that several 

 birds, collected in the Huachuca and Chiricahua Mountains, in Ari- 

 zona, showed signs of intergradation with breeding birds from central 

 California. These were taken by W. W. Price, establishing this bird 



