41 8 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Dendroica striata (J. R. Forster) 

 Black-poll Warbler 



Plate 96 



Muscicapa striata Forster. Philos. Trans. 1772. 62:406,428 

 Sylvicola striata DeKay. Zool. N. Y. 1S44. pt 2, p. 95, fig. 129 

 Dendroica striata A. O. U. Check List. Ed. 3. 1910. p. 315. No. 661 

 striata. Lat., striped or marked with Hnes 



Description. Adult male in spring: Crown black; back grayish streaked 

 with black; cheeks white; under parts white, the sides heavily streaked with 

 black; outer tail feathers with white patches on inner webs near the tip; 

 wings washed with greenish ; 2 white wing bars ; inner wing feathers margined 

 with white. Female in spring: Upper parts grayish oHve green streaked 

 with black; under parts ding}^ white, sometimes tinged with yellow, slightly 

 streaked with black on the sides of the throat and breast. Fall plumage 

 all sexes: Upper parts olive green obscurely streaked with black on the 

 back and on top of the head; under parts dull yellowish or yellowish white, 

 obscurely streaked with dusky on the sides. 



Length 5.56 inches; extent 8.9; wing 2.92; tail 2.05; bill .4. 



Distribution. Breeds in the boreal zone from the limit of trees in 

 Alaska and Labrador southward to northern Maine, New Hampshire, 

 Vermont, New York, Minnesota and in the mountains to Colorado and 

 New jMexico. In New York this is the most purely boreal in its affinities 

 of all our breeding warblers, being confined to the higher mountains of the 

 Catskills and Adirondacks. In the Adirondacks my party found it breeding 

 quite commonly near the summits of the Indian head, Mount Colvin, Geo- 

 logical cobble. Skylight, Haystack, Wolf's Jaws, Marcy and Whiteface. 

 There is very little doubt that it may be found on all the higher peaks 

 which run above 2500 or 3000 feet, at least where there are stunted spruces 

 and balsam firs. As a transient visitant it is abundant in all portions of 

 the State, especially in the coastal district and Hudson valley, arriving 

 from the south from the 9th to the i6th of Maj^ occasionally as early 

 as the 5th, and passing northward from the 26th to the 31st. In the fall 

 Doctor Fisher has noticed it as early as the 5th to the i6th of August at 

 Ossining. In western New York we rarely see it earlier than the 9th to 



