THE AUDUBON WARBLER. 183 
rootlets, etc., heavily lined with horse-hair and feathers; placed usually on branch 
of conifer from four to fifty feet up, sometimes in small tree close against 
trunk, measures 4 inches in width outside by 234 in depth; inside 2 by 1%. Eggs: 
3-5, usually 4, dull greenish white sparingly dotted with blackish or handsomely 
ringed, spotted and blotched with reddish brown, black and lavender. Av. size, 
71 X.54 (18x 13.7). Season: April-June; two broods. Tacoma, April 9, 1905, 
4 eggs half incubated. 
General Range.—Western North America, north to British Columbia, east 
to western border of the Great Plains, breeding thruout its range (in higher 
coniferous forests of California, northern Arizona, etc.), wintering in lower 
valleys and southward thruout Mexico. Accidental in Massachusetts and in 
Pennsylvania. 
Range in Washington.—Common resident and migrant on West-side from 
tidewater to limit of trees; less common migrant and rare winter resident ( ?) east 
of the Cascades. 
Migrations.—S pring: East-side: Yakima, March 11, 1900 (probably winter 
resident); Yakima, April 13, 1900; Chelan, April 20-24, 1896. West-side: 
Tacoma, April 24, 1906. 
Authorities.—Sylvia auduboni Townsend, Journ. Ac. Nat. Sci. Phila. VII. 
ae 191 (“forests of the Columbia River”). C&S. L!. Rh. D'. Kb. Ra. D2. Kk. 
Bee: 
Specimens.—U. of W. P! Prov. B. BN. E. 
AS one considers the Thrushes, Wrens, and Sparrows of our northern 
clime, he is apt to grumble a little at the niggardliness of Mother Nature in the 
matter of providing party clothes. The dark mood is instantly dispelled, how- 
ever, at the sight of this vision of loveliness. Black, white, and gray-blue 
make a very tasty mixture in themselves, as the Black-throated Gray Warbler 
can testify, but when to these is added the splendor of five golden garnishes, 
crown, gorget, epaulets, and culet, you have a costume which Pan must notice. 
And for all he is so bedecked, auduboni is neither proud nor vain,—properly 
modest and companionable withal. 
Westerly, at least, he is among the first voices of springtime, and by the 
roth of March, while all other Warblers are still skulking silently in the South- 
land, this brave spirit is making the fir groves echo to his melody. The song is 
brief and its theme nearly invariable, as is the case with most Warblers; but 
there is about it a joyous, racy quality, which flicks the admiration and calls 
time on Spring. The singer posts in a high fir tree, that all may hear, and the 
notes pour out rapidly, crowding close upon each other, till the whole company 
is lost in a cloud of spray at the end of the ditty. At close quarters, the “fill- 
ing” is exquisite, but if one is a little way removed, where he catches only the 
crests of the sound waves, it is natural to call the effort a trill. At a good 
distance it is even comparable to the pure, monotonous tinkling of Junco. 
I once heard these two dissimilar birds in a song contest. ‘The Warbler 
stood upon a favorite perch of his, a spindling, solitary fir some hundred feet 
