142 MYRTLE WARBLER 



Adult (^, Fall. — Quite unlike c? in Spring; crown and back grayish brown; 

 the latter indistinctly streaked with black; yellow of crown more or less con- 

 cealed by brownish tips; rump bright yellow, upper tail-coverts and tail as in 

 Spring d*; median and greater wing-coverts margined with brownish; cheeks 

 mixed with brownish ; underparts white, the breast washed with brownish and, 

 with sides, with partly concealed black streaks ; yellow patches at sides of breast 

 less pronounced than in Spring. 



Young S, Fall. — Similar to adult cT in Fall but browner above, the yellow 

 crown-patch sometimes nearly hidden ; the underparts less heavily streaked, the 

 breast patches less pronounced. 



Adult $, Spring. — Generally resembling the adult c? in Fall but with the 

 black streaks above and below more sharply defined, the wing-bars white, the 

 cheeks blacker. 



Adult $, Fall. — Resembles young c? in Fall but averages browner and less 

 streaked, the edgings to the wing-coverts browner. 



Young ?, Fall. — Not always to be distinguished from the adult $ in Fall but 

 the yellow crown and breast-patches average smaller and the latter are some- 

 times barely evident or wanting. 



Nestling. — Strikingly different from the nestlings of other Mniotiltidae, 

 except those of D. auduboni. Above brown streaked with black and edged with 

 buffy; below white heavily and definitely streaked with black; greater and 

 median wing-coverts tipped with white. 



General Distribution. — North America; north to Labrador and 

 Alaska. 



Summer Range. — Breeds commonly north almost to the 

 limit of tree growth from Labrador to Alaska, and thence south to 

 southern Maine, the mountains of New Hampshire and Vermont, 

 and the Adirondacks ; less commonly in the Catskills and the more 

 elevated portions of Massachusetts ; has bred casually in the lower 

 districts of Massachusetts (Springfield, Winchendon), and of New 

 York (Utica, Buffalo) ; reported as breeding once at Havre-de- 

 Grace, Maryland. The regular breeding range extends westward 

 from the Adirondacks, through central Ontario (Ottawa) to northern 

 Michigan (Porcupine Mountains), northern Minnesota, Manitoba and 

 westward to British Columbia and northward to Alaska. 



Winter Range. — Mexico and Central America to Panama; the 

 Greater Antilles, the Bahamas, all of southern United States and north 

 to southeastern Kansas, southern Illinois, southern Indiana and 

 northern New Jersey. Along the Atlantic coast and a few miles inland, 

 it occurs with more or less frequency as far north as Massachusetts 

 and even to Cape Elizabeth, Maine. In the western United States 

 the Myrtle Warbler is a common migrant on the plains and not rare at 

 the foothills of the Rockies. It is almost absent from the western slope 

 of these mountains, but reappears again on the Pacific Coast as a rare 



