1S84.I General Noten. IQI 



According to the accompanying data the hird is a male, taken at about 

 the beginning of the breeding season (Ipswich, Mass., May 15, 1883, 

 by E. C. Greenwood). It differs from the normal condition of the adult 

 male as follows : The forehead, crown, occiput, and nape are dull black, 

 with a rectangular spot of brownish white on the nape, but with no trace 

 of the usual median stripe on the top of the head, even at the roots of the 

 feathers. The opposite sides of the head are differently marked. On the 

 left side there is a distinct superciliary stripe of brownish or ochraceous- 

 ash, which begins above the anterior corner of the eye and is continued 

 backward nearly to the occiput, merging posteriorly into a tract of similar 

 color on the auriculars, but separated from it immediately behind the eye by 

 a conspicuous post-ocular spot of black. 



On the right side the black descends uninterruptedly to the auriculars, 

 and there is no apparent trace of a superciliary stripe, although the right 

 eye, like the left, is encircled by a narrow whitish ring. Both lores are 

 black, with a slight tipping of brownish on some of the feathers, and both 

 sides of the head and neck, below the line of the eye, are uniform brownish- 

 ochraceous, with a few obscure dusky shaft-streaks on the auriculars. 



The exposed surface of the throat, jugulum, and breast is plain brownish- 

 ash, without decided markings of any kind, save well back on the sides 

 of the breast, where there are a few black streaks. Upon disarranging the 

 plumage, however, concealed black is everywhere revealed, each feather 

 having a sub-terminal black bar extending squarely across both webs 

 and separating the light brownish-ashy space at the tip from the somewhat 

 broader, pure ashy one at the bases. The back is colored and marked 

 like that of the autumnal female of Mniotilta; the flanks and crissum 

 similarly washed with fulvous. The wings and tail offer nothing peculiar, 

 although they have rather less than the usual amount of white. 



In a more general wav. this bird may be characterized as a Black-and- 

 white Creeper with the crown of a Black-poll Warbler and a throat and 

 breast which recall (although they w-ill not actually bear comparison with) 

 those of the Connecticut Warbler in autumn. Nearlv every one who has 

 seen the specimen has been inclined, at first, to consider it a hybrid, but 

 although the Mniotilta element is obvious enough, it is diiflcult to supply 

 the other parent. Assuming it to have been Deiidroecn striata, the obliter- 

 ation of the median crown-stripe of Mniotilta is accounted for, but a cross 

 with this — or indeed with any other black-cro7vned Warbler of my 

 acquaintance, would hardly give the pecular coloration of the breast and 

 throat. Moreover, the generic characters oi Mniotilta — especially its 

 only really important ones, viz., the peculiar shape and proportion of bill 

 and feet — are in no wise modified as would be certainly the case were the 

 bird an offspring of a cross with a species of another genus. In view of 

 these considerations it is most natural to assume that it is an aberrant — 

 perhaps melanistic — example of tlie common Black-and-white Ci'eeper. 

 The case rinds a fairly close parallel in that of the notorious Spiza toivti- 

 sendi, which can be scarcely maintained as a bona-fide species, while it is 

 equally difficult to show successfully that it had a hybrid origin. The 



