388 NOTES ON THE 



of Mr. Lewis. Mr. Washburn mentions seeing but one of them 

 among his identifications in the Red river valley. They may 

 have begun to change localities at that time, and thus have 

 eluded him. Their return to winter habitations is somewhat 

 less precipitous than many others of its genus, as I have found 

 them in the forests along the Mississippi and surrounding some 

 of our lakes as late as the 20th of September, and even into the 

 earliest days of October on one occasion. 



SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 



Crown dark reddish -chestnut; forehead and cheeks, including 

 a space above the eye, black; a patch of buff-yellow behind the 

 cheeks; rest of upper parts bluish-gray streaked with black; 

 edges of interscapulars tinged with yellowish, scapulars with 

 olivaceous. Primaries and tail feathers edged externally with 

 bluish-gray, extreme outer one with white; secondaries edged 

 with olivaceous. Two bands on the wing and edges of the ter- 

 tials, white; under parts whitish, tinged with buff; chin, throat, 

 fore part of breast and sides, chestnut-brown, lighter than the 

 crown; outer tail feathers with a patch of white on the inner 

 web near the end, the others edged internally with the same. 



Length, 5; wing, 3.05; tail, 2.40. 



Habitat, eastern North America. 



DENDROICA STRIATA (Forster). (661.) 



BLACK-POLL WARBLER. 



Although a regularly returning species in considerable num- 

 bers during the two migrations, the Black- poll Warbler pro- 

 bably goes beyond our lines to breed. Possibly, when all the 

 corner lots have been sold, and this portion of the new north- 

 west has been effectively plowed and fenced in, some of our 

 aesthetic millionaires may give such a measure of his time to 

 the critical study of the habits of the birds, as here and there 

 a lord or duke has done in Great Britain of the ants, when, 

 amongst the other unfinished labors of love, the breeding hab- 

 its of this bird shall be definitely settled. Till then we must 

 wait. 



The Black polls ride the very crest of the wave of migration 

 both in spring and in autumn. But they do not remain very 

 long, passing on to the north by the 20th of May, and return- 

 ing in marked numbers by the 10th to the 15th of September— 

 sometimes a little earlier, and sometimes a little later, according 

 to the special character of the season. Some years they spend 

 a good share of October here, but only exceptionally. They 



