i8o THE CONNECTICUT WARBLER. 



Recognition Marks. — Larger ; grayish slate of male, without black, and con- 

 trasting with pale yellow below ; female and young obscure brownish olive and 

 yellowish birds, without definite contrasts. 



Nesting. — Does not breed in Ohio. Nests described from Manitoba and 

 Ontario, of dry grass, or of grass, leaves and trash, lined with hair, on the 

 iground. Eggs, 4, white with a few spots of lilac, purple, brown, and black 

 about the larger end. Av. size, .75 x .60 (19.1 x 15.2) (Thompson). 



General Range.- — Eastern North America, breeding north of the United 

 States. Northern South America in winter. 



Range in Oliio. — Quite rare, during migrations. 



OF the forty species of Warblers now accredited to Ohio, this is the one 

 bird which has successfully eluded the author's search afield, so that he may 

 perhaps be pardoned some little emotion in setting it down as "quite rare". 

 Others have been more fortunate: Dr. Kirtland in 1838 took one specimen; 

 Dr. Langdon reports one taken near Cincinnati by Mr. Dury in the spring of 

 1876; Dr. Wheaton saw two during his twenty years' residence in Columbus; 

 Professor Jones reports recently two birds seen near Oberlin ; and Rev. W. F. 

 Henninger a pair taken at Waverly, August 10, 1899.-^ 



Mr. Ernest E. Thompson, who was the first to find the nest of the Con- 

 necticut Warbler, says of it : "This species has somewhat the manners of the 

 Vireos, but it is much more active and sprightly in its movements. During 

 the migrations it is generally found on or near the ground in the undergrowth 

 of low damp woods, and also in bordering weedy fields, where it sometimes 

 announces its presence by a sharp peek. In the cold boggy tamarack swamps 

 of Manitoba, where I found it breeding, it was the only one of the family and 

 almost the only bird, whose voice broke the silence of those gray wastes. Its 

 loud song was much like the teacher, teacher chant of the Oven-bird, but it also 

 uttered another, which I can recall to mind by the aid of the syllables, 'free- 

 chapple, free-chapple, free-chapple, whoit.' " 



Mr. M. C. Read, writing in "The Family Visitor" in 1853, says, "This 

 species is described as very rare, but for the two summers past I have noticed 

 it as very abundant in a field of dense brambles, in Andover, Ashtabula County. 

 In its habits it resembles the preceding {Trichas marylandica) [now Geothly- 

 pis trichas brachidactyla] or rather the peculiar habits of the genus are strik- 

 ingly exhibited in this species. * * * They undoubtedly nest with us in 

 considerable numbers." Whether Mr. Read was correct in his surmise we 

 cannot now determine. If true, it is quite probable that the northward trend 

 of species has long since removed the Connecticut Warbler from the list of our 

 breeding birds. 



1 While looking through the O. S. U. collection and since writing the above, I came upon a specimen 

 of this species secured on the O. S. U. grounds by Mr. J. B. Parker, Oct. 8, 1898. Its appearance instantly 

 recalled that of an obscure Geothlypis of which I had obtained several tantalizing glimpses on the 7th of 

 October igoi — probably in the same thicket where Mr. Parker captured his bird — and which I had set down 

 tentatively as an immature male of the Kentucky Warbler. A sober thought, however, of the late date, and 

 the appearance of the O. S. U. specimen in the same plumage convince me that it was an immature Con- 

 necticut Warbler, The bird gave little snatches of song quite unlike anything else I ever heard. 



