274. WILSON’S WARBLER. 
our excursions at the above described locality, we were almost constantly scolded by 
One or more pairs of these birds. Later in the season we met with this species at 
Cheyenne, and near Colorado City and Denver, and also found it common in the vicinity 
of Ogden, Utah, in September.”’ 
The late Mr. H. D. Minot found a nest of Wilson’s Warbler at Seven Lakes, Pike's 
Peak, twelve miles from Manitou, about 11,000 feet in altitude and near the timber- 
line. He writes as follows: 
“....I devoted the morning of June 22nd to finding the nest and eggs of Wilson’s 
Black-cap, which I confidently expected would be in a bush. Being attracted by the 
songs of the birds to a bushy swamp, where they were numerous, I ransacked it 
thoroughly, and finally started a female from a bush. I dropped upon my knees 
without much faith, and was soon rewarded for my humility. The nest was found 
at the edge of the swamp, on the ground, under a low, spreading branch of a 
dwarf willow, and beneath an almost natural archway of dry grasses, opening toward 
the South. It was composed outwardly of shreds loosely set in a hollow, and inwardly 
of fine grass-stalks, with a few hairs. It measured 2.50 inches across inside, by 
half as much in depth. The eggs were five in number, about 0.60%.0.50 in size, 
and dull whitish in color, thickly freckled with dark rusty brown and some slight 
lilac markings, and with some blotches at the larger end,—in three cases on the crown, 
and in two about it. The swamp was too extensive to beat over thoroughly, and I 
did not succeed in finding another nest, nor in putting up another female. The males 
which I saw, perhaps a dozen in all, kept much together, as if they were a colonial 
troop, fluttering through the shrubbery, fly-catching very little, touching the ground 
occasionally, and often having their playful quarrels. Their faces and cheeks were of 
the richest golden yellow, much of the bill being of the same color; and their song was 
different from that of the Eastern bird, as I recall it. They were, I take it, of the 
Western variety (Sylvania pusilla pileolata).”’ 
The true species is distributed from the Atlantic west to and including the Rocky 
Mountains, north to the Hudson’s Bay territory and Alaska. The variety, called the 
PILEOLATED WARBLER, Sylvania pusilla pileolata Ripcway, inhabits western North 
America, from the Great Basin to the Pacific, breeding north to Alaska. Mr. Nuttall 
found a nest of this variety in Oregon, where it arrived early in May. He calls it a 
“little cheerful songster, the very counterpart of our brilliant and cheerful Yellow-bird.” 
According to his opinion the song sounds like ’tsh—’tsh~’tsh-tshea. Their call is brief 
and not so loud. It appeared familiar and unsuspicious, kept in bushes busily collecting 
its insect food, and only varied its employment by an occasional and earnest warble. By 
the 12th of May some were already feeding their full-fledged young. Yet on the 16th of 
the same month he found a nest containing four eggs. This was in a branch of a small 
service bush, laid very adroitly, as to concealment, upon a mass of Usnea. It was built 
chiefly of hypnum mosses, with a thick lining of dry, wiry, slender grasses. The female, 
when approached, slipped off the nest, and ran along the ground like a mouse. The egg 
were very similar to those of the Yellow Warbler, with spots of a pale olive-brown, 
confluent at the larger end.” (B. B. R., I, p. 318.) 
