272 CHARACTERS OF DENDRCECA AUDUBONI 



inner webs of all the lateral feathers with large white blotches. Bill and 

 feet black. One of the larger species. Length, 5-&-5f ; extent, 8-9 ; wing, 

 2f-3; tail,2. 



$, in summer: Generally similar to the $. Upper parts duller and 

 browner slate-color, with less heavy dorsal streaks ; crown-spot and other 

 yellow parts paler ; breast not continuously black, but variegated with black, 

 white, and the color of the back. Sides only obsoletely streaked. Eyelids 

 scarcely white, and cheeks hardly different from the back. White of wing- 

 coverts mostly restricted to two bars ; white tail-spots smaller. 



Both sexes in autumn and winter, and young : Upper parts quite brown, 

 with obscure black marking. Yellow crown-spot concealed or wanting ; yel- 

 low of throat, rump, and sides of breast paler and restricted. Under parts 

 whitish, shaded on the sides, and usually across the breast, with a dilute tint of 

 the color of the back, the breast and sides obsoletely streaked with darker. 

 White of wing-coverts obscured with brownish. 



Very young : No yellow anywhere. Everywhere streaked ; above with 

 blackish and brownish ash, below with dusky and whitish. Wings a,ud tail 

 much as in the autumnal plumage of the adult. 



The full breeding dress of this species is worn but a short time. The 

 spring moult is usually not completed until some time in May, as early 

 May and all April specimens show more or loss evident traces of the dull 

 brown winter plumage, mixed with the clear slate-color. September and 

 October specimens are much the same. The early streaked condition is very 

 brief, the distinctive marking of the species soon appearing. 



In comparing this species with D. coronata, its Eastern representative, the 

 very marked character of restricted yellow throat, in contrast with the 

 more extensively white throat of D. coronata, has drawn attention from other 

 equally good characters. In D. coronata, in full plumage, the whole sides of 

 the head are pure black, bounded above by a white superciliary line ; whereas 

 this part is little darker than tho back in auduboni, and there is no white line. 

 The breast of D. coronata does not appear to be ever continuously black, nor 

 do the two white bars on the wings fuse completely into a large white patch. 

 Younger and autumnal or winter specimens are more similar, but the dis- 

 tinctive yellow throat of auduboni shows at least in traces at a very early 

 age, and is always distinctive. In the very earliest streaky stage, the two 

 species are indistinguishable. 



ALL things considered, we may fairly regard Audubon's 

 Warbler as the most characteristic species of the genus 

 Dendrceca in the West. Not that it is more specially indicative 

 of the fauna from the Eocky Mountains to the Pacific than 

 D. townsendi, D. occidentalis, and D. nigrescens respectively 

 are; but that it is much more abundant and more equably dif- 

 fused over the country than any one of the three other species 

 just mentioned are known to be. It almost entirely replaces the 

 Yellow-rump Warbler or Myrtle-bird in this region, and in fact 

 forms its exact Western representative, being equally common 

 and no less conspicuous among the small insectivorous birds 



