Black-Throated Green Warbler {Dendroka virens) 



By W. Leon Dawson 



Description. — Ad it It male: Throat and breast above and on sides glossy 

 black ; sides of head and neck bright yellow ; a hne through eye, expanding 

 behind, olive-green; above bright olive-green, clearing to yellow in front and on 

 sides of crown; spotted or streaked with black on middle back, and sometimes, 

 minutely, on crown ; upper tail-coverts ashy or olivaceous-edged ; wings and 

 tail dusky with ashy edgings on external webs ; two broad white wing-bars ; outer 

 pair of tail-feathers almost entirely, and succeeding pairs decreasingly white on 

 inner webs; middle of breast, belly and crissum pale yellowish white; bill black; 

 feet dark brown. Adult female: Similar, but with less black streaking on back, 

 and with black of throat and sides extensively veiled by yellowish skirtings of 

 feathers. Immature: Like female, but with more yellow below, and with black 

 of throat still more thoroughly concealed by yellow tips. Length 4.50-5,40 

 (114.3-137.2) ; av. of ten Columbus specimens: wing 2.49 (63.2) ; tail 1.91 (48.5) ; 

 bill .38 (9.7). 



Recognition Marks. — Medium size; bright yellow of cheeks and forehead 

 contrasting, or not, with black of throat. 



Nest, of twigs, bark-strips, grass, moss and feathers, placed ten to fifty feet 

 high in coniferous trees. Eggs, 4, white with creamy or buffy tints, speckled and 

 spotted with lilac-gray and rufous-brown, usually gathered in loose wreath about 

 larger end. Av. size, .63 x .49 (16. x 12.5). 



General Range. — Eastern North America to the Plains, north to Hudson 

 Bay Territory, breeding from Connecticut and northern Illinois northward, and 

 south along the Alleghenies to South Carolina. In winter south to Cuba and . 

 Panama. Accidental in Greenland and Europe. 



If we are sometimes disposed to envy the ornithological pioneers, Wilson, 

 Audubon and the rest, because of their unique opportunities for observing birds 

 now rare or extinct, we may comfortably reflect upon the fact that that most 

 fascinating and distinctively American family, the Mniotiltidae, is yearly mar- 

 shalled before our eyes in a way that was denied the fathers. The chief reason 

 for this is one which we deplore otherwise, viz., the continued denudation of the 

 forests. It is probably safe to say that in Wilson's day, that is, during the opening 

 decade of the last century, eighty-five per cent of the area of our state was covered 

 with timber. In such a forest even of the great Warbler army, whole regiments 

 might pass year by year unnoticed, and many species be held rare which were 

 really abundant. But as early as 1885 the forest acreage was estimated at only 

 seventeen per cent of the whole. These are the latest statistics available, but 

 the percentage, without doubt, has steadily decreased since then. In this respect, 

 '■'■''^n. we are favored; for if tlie birds would forage at all, they must needs avail 



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