BLACK-THROATED GRAY WARBLER 275 



collection of Charles E. Doe, in Florida, was taken by the same col- 

 lector in the same mountains on June 8, 1937; it was in a crotch of an 

 aspen, 30 feet up. 



Eggs. — The measurements of 16 eggs average 18.5 by 13.6 milli- 

 meters ; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 19.8 by 14.0, 19.5 

 by 14.4, 17.3 by 13.9, and 17.6 by 12.4 millimeters (Harris). 



DENDROICA NIGRESCENS (Townsend) 



BLACK-THROATED GRAY WARBLER 



Plate 35 



HABITS 



The black-throated gray warbler is neatly dressed in gray-black and 

 white, with only a tiny spot of bright yellow in front of the eye. Its 

 breeding range extends from southern British Columbia, Nevada, 

 northern Utah, and northwestern Colorado southward to northern 

 Lower California, southern Arizona, and southern New Mexico. It 

 spends the winter in Mexico. 



As a summer resident it is common and sometimes abmidant in 

 western Washington, even at lower elevations where, Samuel F. Rath- 

 bun tells me, it "prefers a locality somewhat open, with a second 

 growth of young conifers ; this may occur in the rather heavy forest, 

 if such condition exists there, or along tlie edge of the timber; the 

 species is partial to this character of growth." 



In southern Oregon, according to C. W. Bowles (1902), it seems to 

 combine the habitat requirements of the eastern black-throated green 

 and the prairie warbler. Like the former, it seeks tall trees, prefer- 

 ably conifers, well scattered and interspersed with bushes, since it 

 nests in both. Like the prairie warbler, it chooses high dry places 

 with dry ground underneath for its nest. 



Farther south, the black-throated gray warbler seems to prefer 

 growths of hardwood and underbrush for its summer haunts — oaks,- 

 scrub oak, piny on, juniper, manzanita, and the like. Dr. Walter K. 

 Fisher wrote to Dr. Chapman (1907) that, in California, "it lives in 

 chaparral such as deer brush, wild lilac of various species, scrub oak, 

 and sometimes, particularly in the humid coast districts, among ever- 

 greens. It is fond of the neighborhood of clearings where it works 

 constantly and carefully among low growth." Dr. Grinnell (1908) 

 says that in the San Bernardino Mountains, "this warbler appeared to 

 be be confined exclusively to the golden oak belt during the breeding 

 season." Referring to the Great Basin region. Dr. Linsdale (1938) 

 writes : "The black-throated gray warbler was one of the few species 

 adapted to occupy the piilon belt on the Toyabe Mountains. Not only 



