56 Beewster's Descriptions of the First Plumage 



stance of the capture of the Western foiTQ in New England. As 

 a pretty conchisive proof that our New York bird has been derived 

 from the Western {excuhitoroides) "type," we have the fact of the 

 continuity of its range eastward from the Mississippi to the Adiron- 

 dacks (throiigh Ohio to Buffalo, Auburn, Utica, and Lewis County, 

 New York) ; while, on the other hand, its entire absence from those 

 portions of the State where the Carolinian Fauna is most marked 

 (notably along the Hudson River, where such characteristic birds as 

 Icteria virens, Myiodioctes mitratus, Helmitherus vermivorus, and 

 Siurus motacilla breed in abundance) is sufficient evidence that it 

 is not the Southern bird. That it does not occur in the region 

 above specified is pretty clearly shown by the fact that neither Ed- 

 gar A, Mearns {of Highland Falls, near West Point) nor Eugene P. 

 Bicknell (of Riverdale), two of our most enterprising young collec- 

 tors, have ever met with even a single straggler of the genus, other 

 than C horealis, although they have both made the birds of the 

 Hudson River Valley a special study. 



[To be continued.) 



DESCRIPTIONS OF THE FIRST PLUMAGE IN VARIOUS 

 SPECIES OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



BY WILLIAM BREWSTER. 



IL* 

 24. Helminthophaga chrysoptera. 



Fall plumage : male. Upper parts bluish-gray, washed strongly with 

 olive-green on the back. Forehead and crown yellow, somewhat ob- 

 scured by greenish streaking. Occiput bright greenish-yellow. Patch on 

 wings clear yellow. Band through the eye and entire under parts, as in 

 the adult. Chin, throat, and jugulum black, each leather broadly edged 

 with soiled white. White maxillary stripes fairly meeting on anterior 

 portion of chin. (This last feature may probably be explained by indi- 

 vidual variation, not by age. I have seen many adults similarly charac- 

 terized.) 



Fall plumage : female. Remiges, rectrices, etc., as in adult. Pileuni 

 and nape uniform olive-green ; back and rump bluish-gray, washed with 



* For Part I, see this volume, pp. 15- 23. 



