388 NOTES ON THE 
of Mr. Lewis. Mr. Washburn mentions seeing but one of them 
among his identifications in the Red river valley. They may 
have begun to change localities at that time, and thus have 
eluded him. Their return to winter habitations is somewhat 
less precipitous than many others of its genus, as I have found 
them in the forests along the Mississippi and surrounding some 
of our lakes as late as the 20th of September, and even into the 
earliest days of October on one occasion. 
SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 
Crown dark reddish-chestnut; forehead and cheeks, including 
a space above the eye, black; a patch of buff-yellow behind the 
cheeks; rest of upper parts bluish-gray streaked with black; 
edges of interscapulars tinged with yellowish, scapulars with 
olivaceous. Primaries and tail feathers edged externally with 
bluish-gray, extreme outer one with white; secondaries edged 
with olivaceous. 'T'wo bands on the wing and edges of the ter- 
tials, white; under parts whitish, tinged with buff; chin, throat, 
fore part of breast and sides, chestnut-brown, lighter than the 
crown; outer tail feathers with a patch of white on the inner 
web near the end, the others edged internally with the same. 
Length, 5; wing, 3.05; tail, 2.40. 
Habitat, eastern North America. 
DENDROICA STRIATA (Forster). (661.) 
BLACK-POLL WARBLER. _ 
Although a regularly returning species in considerable num- 
bers during the two migrations, the Black-poll Warbler pro- 
bably goes beyond our lines to breed. Possibly, when all the 
corner lots have been sold, and this portion of the new north- 
west has been effectively plowed and fenced in, some of our 
esthetic millionaires may give such a measure of his time to 
the critical study of the habits of the birds, as here and there 
a lord or duke has done in Great Britain of the ants, when, 
amongst the other unfinished labors of love, the breeding hab- 
its of this bird shall be definitely settled. Till then we must 
wait. 
The Black-polls ride the very crest of the wave of migration 
both in spring and in autumn. But they do not remain very 
long, passing on to the north by the 20th of May, and return- 
ing in marked numbers by the 10th to the 15th of September— 
sometimes a little earlier, and sometimes a little later, according 
to the special character of the season. Some years they spend 
a good share of October here, but only exceptionally. They 
