MACGILLIVRAY’S WARBLER. 253 
ever the land has been recently cleared, but not appropriated for pasturage or tillage, 
the Mourning Warbler is found, the most characteristic tenant of the dense ‘sprout 
growth’ that forms the vanguard of the succeeding forest. By widening the domain of 
this lovely bird the wood-cutter atones, in a measure, for the destruction he causes. 
The song that I most often heard resembles the syllables thtir-ree, thtir-ree, thtir-ree 
(sometimes the repetition was four times instead of three). A refrain consisting of three 
notes, with the accent upon the last, or of two notes with a strong accent on the first, 
the voice falling on the second, was sometimes appended. At other times the form of 
the song was quite different, consisting of but five notes, the penultimate note strongly 
accented, the last pitched on a lower key. The last two notes together are equal in 
time to one of the first three. Something in the mode of delivery of the latter song 
suggests the song of the Water Thrush, as Mr. Maynard has observed. As far as I 
could determine, the same bird always followed one score. The Mourning Warbler, like 
the Golden-crowned Thrush, or its nearer relative, the Maryland Yellow-throat, is much 
given to an ecstatic aérial song that defies description.” 
The bird is distributed over the Eastern States, west to Dakota, and breeds from 
the Northern States northward. In Manitoba it seems to be abundant. In winter it 
is found south to Central and northern South America. 
NAMES: Movurninc Wars eEr, Black-throated Ground Warbler. 
SCIENTIFIC NAMES: Sylvia philadelphia Wils. (1810). Trichas philadelphia Aud. (1839). GEOTHLYPIS 
PHILADELPHIA Bairp (1858). 
DESCRIPTION: ‘Adult male: Head and neck all round, with throat and forepart of breast, ash-gray, paler 
beneath. “The feathers of the chin, throat, and fore-breast in reality black, but with narrow ashy 
margins, more or less concealing the black, except on the breast. Lores and region round the eye, 
dusky, without any trace of a pale ring. Upper parts and sides of the body, clear olive-green; the 
under-parts, bright yellow. Tail-feathers, uniform olive; first primary, with the outer half of the 
outer web, nearly white. Female: With the gray of the crown, glossed with olive; the chin and 
throat, paler centrally, and tinged with fulvous; a dull whitish ring round the eye. 
“Length, 5.50 inches; wing, 2.45; tail, 2.25 inches.” (Ridgway.) 
MACGILLIVRAY’S WARBLER. 
Geothlypis macgillivrayi Batrp. 
In the Western States the Mourning Warbler is replaced by the beautiful and 
closely allied MaccILLIVRAY’s WARBLER. It seems to be a rather common bird from 
the eastern foot-hills of the Rocky Mountains -to the Pacific coast, and occurs north 
into British Columbia. Its winter home extends from southern Mexico to Central 
America, where it frequents the borders of woods. Near the Columbia in Washington 
and Oregon this Warbler is an abundant summer resident, being there as common as 
the Maryland Yellow-throat is in the East. Nuttall informs us that it keeps near the 
ground, and gleans its subsistence among the low bushes. It is shy, and when sur- 
prised or closely watched, it immediately skulks off, often uttering a loud click. A nest 
which this naturalist examined was chiefly made of strips of the inner bark of Thuja 
occidentalis, lined with slender wiry stalks. It was built near the ground, in the dead, 
moss-covered limbs of a fallen oak, and was partly hidden by long tufts of Usnea. 
