WARBLERS 



15; 



disappears in the forests of nortlicrii Michigan. 

 Minnesota, antl Manitol)a. I'Voni the fxtreniely 

 few records of this bird during the breeding 

 season, one might suppose there were but a few- 

 dozen pairs in existence, allowing even for those 

 that are really never observed by man. Alaybe 

 no one but Ernest T. Seton has ever seen a nest 

 of the Connecticut ^^'arbler. He found a nest 

 and eggs on a mossy mound in a tamarack 

 swamp near Carberry, Manitoba, June 21. 1NS3. 

 During the breeding season Connecticut has 

 two songs : one, becchcr. six times repeated, and 

 the other, frce-chapcl. frcc-chapcl. fycc-chapcl, 

 zchuit. Free chapel and Beecher and Connecti- 

 cut do not seem -^o inappropriately associated in 

 the same bird, so that his Puritan name is quite 

 proper. 



In the late summer, the Connecticut Warblers 

 start for the land of the Puritan and show them- 

 selves there nuich more commonlv than else- 

 where. They do not go south by way of the 

 Mississippi basin, but following east through the 

 St. Lawrence and Great Lakes basin, reach New 

 England in September. These rare Warblers 

 pass on, most of them, unnoticed through the 

 .\tlantic coast States and leave Florida in Octo- 

 ber. The latest known record of this bird was 

 on (Jctober 2Jd in the northern part of Colombia 

 in .South America. From then until April the 

 bird is lost to the world. One year on April qth 

 the bird was seen at Tonantins, a town of the 

 upper .\mazon. The earliest I'lorida date is onlv 

 a month later. 



L. Nelso.\ Nicikjls. 



MOURNING WARBLER 

 Oporornis Philadelphia (Wilson) 



A. (). f. XiimliL-r (,79 See Color I'l.itc loo 



Other Names. — Black-throated Ground Warbler ; 

 Crape Warbler ; Alourniiig Ground Warbler : Phila- 

 delphia Warbler. 



General Description. — Length, 5'j inches. Upper 

 parts, gray and olive-green : under parts, black and 

 yellow. Bill, much shorter than head, slender, tapering 

 gradually to the tip ; wings, long and pointed ; tail, 

 shorter than wing, slightly rounded, the feathers taper- 

 ing. 



Color. — .•\dult M.m.e: Head and neck, plain slate- 

 gray deepening into slate color on crown and hindneck, 

 and into almost black on lores; chin, throat, and chest, 

 black, the feathers with distinct terminal margins of 

 slate-gray, these sometimes so broad in front and on 

 the sides that the black is mainly concealed, except on 

 chest; rest of under parts, clear canary-yellow, chang- 

 ing to olive-green on sides and flanks ; upper parts, 

 except crown and hindneck, uniform olive-green, the 

 outermost primary edged with whitish; bill, brownish- 

 black ; iris, brown ; le.gs and feet, pale flesh color. No 

 Zi'hitc cyc-r'uuj in adult male. Adult Female: Similar 

 to the adult male, but without any black on chin. 



throat, or chest, which are smoke gray, much paler 

 (sometimes brownish-white) on chin and part of 

 throat ; slate color of crown and hindneck duller, tinged 

 witli olive ; yellow of under parts slightly paler. 



Nest and Eggs. — Nest; In swampy ground among 

 weed bunches or old logs, well concealed and very near 

 the earth, or in the uplands in dry cut-over clearings 

 in small bushes one or two feet above ground ; com- 

 posed of dead weeds, some bark strips, and grass and 

 thickly lined with black horse-hair or black rootlets. 

 Eg(jS : 4 or 5, white, marked around large end with 

 chestnut and lilac and with small spots of former 

 color scattered over remainder of the shell. 



Distribution. — Eastern United States and British 

 Provinces; breeding from mountains of West Virginia 

 (spruce belt) and Pennsylvania, New York, higher dis- 

 tricts of New England, Michigan, eastern Nebraska ( ?), 

 and Minnesota, northward at least to northwestern 

 Ontario, and Manitoba, during migration southward 

 tlirough eastern United States in general (as far west 

 as central Texas), and in winter south to Nicaragua, 

 Costa Rica, Colombia, and Ecuador. 



The Mourning Warbler is a quiet Thrush-like 

 bird. If he did not sing in the spring, he might 

 be considered not only scarce but very rare. 

 Even as it is there are many people who have 

 never seen the bird, even in the broad area in 

 which it breeds. 



In the cool tangles and thickets of mirthern 

 hillsides ribbed by cooler gullies, and down in 



the fiat valley swamps where brush and small 

 trees aboinid, that is where the Mourning 

 \\'arblcr breaks forth into song, because his nest 

 is somewhere not far away from the view of 

 ])oison ivy, deadly nightshade, or skunk cabbage. 

 .\ little bush in the rank ferns may be the nest- 

 ing site. The warmer and more settled parts of 

 the wide breeding area are seldom visited by the 



