296 BIRDS OF PENNSYLVANIA. 



GENUS GEOTHLYPIS* CABANIS. 

 Geothlypis formosa (WiLs.)- 



Kentucky Warbler. 



DESCRIPTION {Plate 98). 



Length about 5| ; extent about 9. Top of head black, the feathers edged poste- 

 riorly with grayish ; the black lores join a broad black patch below eye and connect^ 

 ing with a streak of same on sides of neck ; rest of upper parts greenish-olive ; con- 

 spicuous superciliary stripe and under parts bright yellow. 



Female similar but somewhat duller. The young have black obscure or absent. 



Habitat. Eastern United States, west to the plains, and north to southern New 

 England and southern Michigan. In winter, West Indies and Central America. 



This beautiful bird, readily mistaken in the bushes for the Hooded 

 Warbler, is a summer resident in Pennsylvania, where it arrives usually 

 about May 1st, and remains until, generally, the middle of September. 

 As a well-known writer observes the Kentucky Warbler resembles in its 

 manners the Water Thrushes, "having- the same tilting- motion of the 

 body and horizontal altitude when perching, so characteristic of these 

 birds " (Ridgway). Although greatly like the Oven-bird in many of 

 its ways it can easily be distinguished from the latter by its bright yel- 

 low and immaculate under parts. His song is also much more pleasing 

 and different from that of the Oven-bird ; the song, Mr. Eidgway f says, 

 " recalls that of the Cardinal, but is much weaker, and its ordinary note 

 is a soft pchip, somewhat like that of the Pewee (Sayornis phoebe)" 

 Inhabits the thick undergrowth of low, damp and boggy woodland ; in 

 woods and well-sheltered swamps about the borders of forests where 

 skunk-cabbage (Symplocarpus foeditus) and spice-wood bushes (Benzoin 

 odoriferum) abound there you mostly will find these active, pugnacious 

 and secretive songsters. Like the Oven-bird, this warbler nests 011 the 

 ground, and although the bulky nest is not roofed over, it is equally as 

 difficult to discover as that of the Oven-bird. Ten nests which I have 

 found in Chester, Delaware and Clarion counties, have all been built in 

 damp situations in woods. This species rarely, if ever, I think, nests on 

 a dry hillside as the Oven-bird commonly does. 



The Kentucky Warbler is a very common summer resident in differ- 

 ent localities in southeastern Pennsylvania, being almost as numerous 

 as the Maryland Yellow-throat, for which bird it is sometimes mistaken, 



"Legs yellow in dried specimens, but in freshly killed specimens legs are pale flesh color, or light- 

 brownish flesh color ; the anterior part of tarsus is darker than posterior part. Bill distinctly notched 

 at end : rictal bristles very short or absent ; tail and wings without spots and bands or bars ; eyes brown. 

 The Connecticut and Kentucky Warblers (subgenus Oporornis of Baird) have moderately stout and 

 rather lengthened bills, somewhat depressed at base and rather compressed, particularly in Kentucky 

 Warbler, from about middle to end ; wings, long and pointed, considerably longer than the nearly even 

 or slightly rounded tail ; first primary longest ; tail-feathers acuminate. The Maryland Yellow-throat 

 and Mourning Warbler (subgenus Geothlypis of Cabanis) have short rounded wings ; the first primary is 

 shorter than second, third and fourth quills : tail long, about equal to wings, and graduated. 



tOru. of III., p. 166. 



