SYLVICOLID^E — THE WARBLERS. 197 



yellow ; the anal region paler ; the sides tinged with olive, A broad yellowish-white 

 ring round the eye ; the lores yellowish ; no superciliary stripe. The inner edges of the 

 tail-feathers margined with dull white. Female similar, but duller; the under parts paler, 

 and with more white ; but little trace of the red of the crown. Lengtli, 4.Go : wing, 2.42 ; 

 tail, 2.05. 



Hab. Eastern Province of North America; rare in the Middle Province (Fort Tejon, 

 Cal, and East Humboldt Mountains, Nev.) ; Greenland (Reinhardt) ; Oaxaca (February 

 and August, Sclater) ; Xalapa and Cordova (Sglater) ; Orizaba (winter, Sumichrast). 

 Not recorded from West Indies. 



It is an interestiug fact, that, in this species, we find in the yellow a ten- 

 dency to become more and more restricted as we pass westward. In adult 

 spring males from the Atlantic States this color invades the cheeks, and 

 even stains the lores and eyelids. In two adult spring males from Chicago 

 it is confined within the maxilhe, the cheeks being clear asli, and the loral 

 streak and orbital ring pure white ; while in an adult male (autumnal, how- 

 ever) from the East Humboldt IVIountains (Nevada, No. 53,354, U. S. Geol. 

 E\pl., 40th par.) the yellow is restricted to a medial strip, even the sides 

 of the throat being ashy ; the asli invades the back too, almost to the rump, 

 while in Eastern specimens it extends no farther back than the nape. A 

 male (No. 10,656, J. Xantus) from Fort Tejon, Cal., is mucli like the Ne- 

 vada specimen, though the peculiar features of the remote Western form are 

 less exaggerated ; it is about intermediate between the other specimen and 

 the specimens from Chicago. As there is not, unfortunately, a sufficiently 

 large series of these l)irds before us, we cannot say to what extent these 

 variations with longitude are constant. 



Habits. The Nash\ille Warbler appears to be a species of somewhat 

 irregular occurrence ; at one time it will be rather abundant, though never 

 very numerous, and at another time comparatively rare. For a long while our 

 older naturalists regarded it as a very rare species, and knew nothing as to 

 its habits or distribution. Wilson, who first met witii it in 1811, never foinid 

 more than three specimens, which he procured near Nashville, Tenn. Audu- 

 bon only met with three or four, and these he obtained in Louisiana and 

 Kentucky. These and a few others in Titian Peale's collection, supposed to 

 have been obtained in Pennsylvania, were all he ever saw. Mr. Nuttall at 

 first regarded it as very rare, and as a Southern species. In that writer's later 

 edition he speaks of it as a bird having a Northern distribution as far as 

 Labrador. Dr. Richardson records the occurrence of a single straggler in the 

 fur country. So far as known, it occurs as a migrant in all the States 

 east of tlie Missouri, and is a summer resident north of the 4()th parallel. 

 It ])robably breeds in the high ground of Pennsylvania, though this fact is 

 inferred rather than known. It breeds in Connecticut and Massachusetts, 

 and in Maine in the vicinity of Calais, being more al.)undant there than any- 

 where else, as far as has been ascertained. 



Two individuals of this species have been taken in Greenland : one at 

 Godthaab, in 1835 ; and the other at Fiskena3sset, August 31, 1840. 



