Lawrence's and Brewster's Warblers 1 



.By James Chapin 



Lawrence's and Brewster's warblers are two ornithological puz- 

 zles, usually considered hybrids between the blue-winged and the 

 golden-winged warblers, but their exact relations are still in some 

 doubt. It has been suggested that Brewster's warbler may be 

 only a color phase of the blue-wing, but this is not very likely. 

 Indeed it is more probable that the case would be better ex- 

 plained by the theory of Mendelism. 



Typical Helminthophila " lawrencei " has the yellow body color 

 of H. pinus, with the black throat and cheek patches of H. chrys- 

 optera, while the general color of H. " leucobronchialis " is gray, 

 somewhat lighter than the H. chrysoptera, whose black markings 

 about the head it lacks. Besides these typical forms, how- 

 ever, a number of intermediates have been found, the most com- 

 mon of which is a sort of Brewster's warbler with a yellow tinge 

 on the breast. 



Brewster's warbler is, in fact, much commoner than Law- 

 rence's, and has been found breeding a number of times, usually 

 with the blue-wing, in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and eastern 

 New York. The nesting of Lawrence's warbler has been watched 

 but once, in Bronx Park, where a male Lawrence's warbler was 

 mated with a female blue-wing. 



During the past year I have collected a typical male Law- 

 rence's warbler on Staten Island, and a typical Brewster's warbler 

 (female) in New Jersey. On May n, 1907, I discovered the 

 Lawrence's warbler in a field near St. Andrew's Church, at Rich- 

 mond, Staten Island. It had a perfectly black throat, and the 

 white wing-bars of the blue-winged warbler. 



On July 14, 1907, at Buckabear Pond, Passaic County, N. J., 

 while I was looking for the female of a hooded warbler, mv 

 1 Presented December 21, 1907. 



