378 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Mniotilta varia (Linnaeus) 

 Black and White Warbler 



Plate 92 



Motacilla varia Linnaeus. Syst. Nat. Ed. 12. 1766. 1:333 

 Mniotilta varia DeKay. Zool. N. Y. 1844. pt 2, p. 52, fig. 89 



A. O. U. Check List. Ed. 3. 1910. p. 304. No. 636 

 mniotilta, from Gr., meaning moss-plucking; varia, Lat., variegated 



Description. Striped with black and white, the crown showing 2 broad 

 black stripes, with a central and 2 lateral white stripes, but the whole 

 appearance of the upper parts, breast and sides is of a conspicuously black 

 and white striped bird; 2 diagonal white wing bars caused by the white 

 tips of the coverts; ear region mostly black, likewise central portion of 

 the upper tail coverts; outer tail feathers with conspicuous white patches 

 on their inner webs; center of the breast and belly white. Female: Similar 

 but less sharply streaked, with decidedly less black on the throat and sides 

 of the head, and the whole plumage more or less washed with brownish. 

 Young males: Similar to the adult, but with less black on the cheeks, 

 throat and breast. Young females: Like the adult female. 



Length 5.3 inches; extent 8.54; wing 2.73; tail 2.03; bill .37. 



Distribution. This warbler inhabits eastern America from central 

 Mackenzie, northern Ontario, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, to northern 

 Georgia, Louisiana and eastern Texas, and winters from Colima and Neuva 

 Leon to Colombia, Ecuador and Venezuela, and occasionally in southern 

 Florida, the Bahamas and the West Indies. 



In New York it is generally distributed throughout the State, occurring 

 as a common migrant in all the southern portions, and as a local or fairly 

 common summer resident from Long Island, the southern Hudson valley 

 and the lower portions of western New York, to the edges of the Catskills 

 and Adirondacks. Within the cooler portions of the Alleghanian zone 

 and throughout the Canadian zone of New York it is a common summer 

 resident. In the district about Mt Marcy, I found this bird nesting on 

 the Indian head, the Geological cobble, Bartlett ridge, Marcy trail by 

 the old Mclntyre lumber camp, Skylight camp, Golden trail, Elk Lake 

 road, and at the timber line on both Skylight mountain and Mt Marcy. 



