4-16 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Dendroica castanea (Wilson) 

 Bay-breasted Warbler 



Plate 96 



Sylvia castanea Wilson. Amer. Orn. 1810. 2:97. pi. 14, fig. 4 

 Sylvicola castanea DeKay. Zool. N. Y. 1844. pt 2, p. 94, fig. n6 

 Dendroica castanea A. 0. U. Check List. Ed. 3. 1910. p. 314. No. 660 

 castanea, Lat., a chestnut, alluding to the color of the breast 



Description. Adult male in spring: Throat and fore breast, run- 

 ning part way down the sides, chestnut; crown deep chestnut; black 

 forehead, eye spot and line over the eye; back streaked with black, grayish 

 olive and buffy; a buffy patch on the side of the neck back of the auriculars; 

 tail dusky, margined with gray; 2 or 3 outer feathers with white patches 

 on their inner webs near the tip; wings with 2 broad white bars; belly white; 

 Female: Similar to male, but the chestnut markings less pure, the chest- 

 nut on the throat and sides sometimes appearing only in patches. Male 

 in the fall: Olive green, somewhat streaked with blackish; crown showing 

 some concealed chestnut when a bird is examined in the hand; wings and 

 tail similar to the spring plumage but more tinged with yellowish; under 

 parts whitish tinged with yellowish on the throat and breast, with buffy 

 on the flanks and under tail coverts; sides with more or less chestnut. Young: 

 Similar to the fall plumage of the male, but showing no chestnut on the 

 crown or sides. 



Length 5.63 inches; extent 8.95; wing 2.95; tail 2.12; bill .41. 



Distribution. Breeds from northeastern Alberta, southern Keewatin, 

 Ungava and Newfoundland to Manitoba, northern New Hampshire and 

 northern Maine. Winters in Panama and Colombia. Although I searched 

 for this warbler through the highest portion of the Adirondacks during 

 the breeding season of 1905, neither I nor any one of my five assistants 

 could find any evidence of its residence in that region. As it breeds in 

 the mountains of northern New Hampshire we expected to find it about 

 Whiteface, Marcy, Skylight, Haystack or some of the neighboring moun- 

 tains, but utterly failed to find any but negative evidence of it. During 

 the migration season this is a common transient in most portions of New 

 York, though somewhat irregular in distribution. During some seasons 

 it is fairly abundant in western New York and some seasons on Long Island 



