234 HABITS OF THE OLIVE WARBLER 



side of the Valley of the Lower Eio Grande has afforded vari- 

 ous species,* the existence of which in this region long remained 

 unsuspected. Mr. Cassin redescribed and figured the species 

 in 1855, since which time it has been generally enumerated 

 among the birds of the United States 5 but, so far as I am 

 aware, the first unequivocal testimony of its presence over our 

 border has only been very recently afforded, by Mr. H. W. Hen- 

 shaw, who took specimens in Arizona, and gave us our first 

 information of the habits of the bird. The distribution of the 

 species had meanwhile been traced southward through Mexico 

 to Guatemala. The Baron Dubus, an ornithologist of Belgium, 

 had examined a specimen from some portion of Mexico, and in 

 1847 had described it as a new species under the name of Syl- 

 via tceniata. Baird had noted the bird from Popocatepetl and 

 the alpine region of Orizaba, whence specimens reached the 

 Smithsonian through Prof. F. E. Sumichrast, the well-known 

 collector j while Sclater and Salvin had left records of the occur- 

 rence of the species in Cordova, Oaxaca, Xalapa, and Vera Paz. 

 Mr. Henshaw ? s narrative of his experiences with the bird is as 

 follows : " During a three days' visit to Mount Graham, Au- 

 gust 1 to 4, the species was not detected ; . . . . Returning 

 here September 19, many of the species found in August in 

 abundance had migrated south, and were either entirely want- 

 ing or represented by individuals from farther north, while the 

 woods, the silence of which was often unbroken for long inter- 

 vals by the note of a single bird, would now and then, as if by 

 magic, be filled with hundreds of feathered migrants, who in 

 noisy companies were proceeding on their way south. The day 

 after establishing our camp here, Mr. Eutter, of the party, 

 brought in a fine specimen of this warbler, which he stated he 

 had shot from among a flock of Audubon's Warblers and Snow- 



* Dr. James C. Merrill, Assistant Surgeon United States Army, lately found 

 at Fort Brown, Texas, the following interesting species, all, with the excep- 

 tion of the Grebe, new to the fauna of the United States: Molothru* ceneus, 

 Nyctidromus albicollis, Pyrrhophcena riefferi, Amazilia cerviniventris, Parr a 

 gymnostoma, and Podiceps dominicus. (See Ball. Nutt. Ornith. Club, i. n. 4, 

 Nov. 1876, p. 88, and ii. n. 1, Jan. 1877, p. 26.) That the ornithological re- 

 sources of our southern border are not yet exhausted may also bo inferred 

 from the fact that Mr. Henshaw alone added about a dozen species to the 

 fauna of Arizona. Still later, Mr. George B. Sennett collected a Pigeon 

 (Leptoptila albifrom) new to our fauna, near Fort Brown, Texas, as recorded 

 by me, Bull. Nutt. Ornith. Club, ii. n. 3, for July, 1877, p. 82 ; besides the new 

 Parula described on a preceding page, aud a variety of Myiarchus not before 

 recognized as au inhabitant of the United States. 



