THE AUK: 



A Q.UARTERLY JOURNAL OF 



ORNITHOLOGY. 



VOL. XIV. July, 1897. no. 3. 



A STUDY OF THE PHILADELPHIA VIREO {VIREO 

 PHILADELPHICUS) . 



BY JONATHAN DWIGHT, JR., M. D. 



E/afe 11. 



The Philadelphia Vireo was first described as a new species 

 nearly half a century ago by Mr. John Cassin, from a specimen 

 taken near Philadelphia, Pa., in September, 1842 (Proc. Acad. 

 Nat. Sci. Phila., V, Feb. 1851, p. 153, pi. 10, fig. 2). It was 

 many years later before anything was known of the breeding 

 habits of the birds, and an article by Mr. William Brewster (Bull. 

 Nutt. Orn. Club, V, 1880, pp. 1-7), who found the species rather 

 commonly distributed over the Lake Umbagog region in western 

 Maine, remains to-day the only sketch we have of them. I should 

 perhaps except the notes of Mr. E. Seton Thompson who, in 1884 

 found a nest and eggs near Fort Pelly, Assiniboia, and briefly 

 recorded the circumstance (Seton [= Thompson], Auk, II, 1885, 

 pp. 305, 306). Few other observers have been favored with more 

 than rare glimpses of the birds, which are still considered prizes 

 wherever they are captured. And yet many specimens, almost 

 wholly migrants, have been recorded of late years, so that the 

 geographical distribution of the species is pretty definitely estab- 

 lished. It appears to winter in Central America, as far south as 



