BIRDS OF NEW YORK 397 



although occasionally found in mixed groves where the deciduous species 

 predominate. It is practically confined to the localities w^here usnea moss 

 is fairly abundant, although in the ravines on Canandaigua and Seneca 

 and Cayuga lakes I have found it nesting where the atmosphere was damp 

 on the south side of the gully and the hemlocks rather abundant, but 

 almost no usnea was visible. In the Adirondacks we found it in the spruce 

 swamps where this moss was particularly abundant. The nest is almost 

 always concealed in a large hanging bunch of usnea, largely composed of 

 filaments of the bunch itself as it hangs from the twigs, but also interwoven 

 with soft plant fibers and bits of usnea brought from neighboring trees. 

 The nest is thus pensile and softly lined with cottony substances. 



" The salient feature of the Parula warbler's song in all its many 

 variations is a guttural buzz. The song may be one uninterrupted buzz 

 uttered in an evenly accented scale or broken into separate notes at the 

 beginning or end; but the buzz is always apparent in some portion and 

 always serves to distinguish it from the song of Dendroica black- 

 bur niae, which sometimes approaches it quite closely in form. The 

 call is a chip not very characteristic " (Thayer MSS.). Chapman has 

 characterized the song of the Parula warbler very aptly as a " sizzling gurgle." 



Dendroica tigrina (Gmelin) 

 Cape May Warbler 



Plate 95 



Motacilla tigrina Gmelin. Syst. Nat. 1789. 1:985 

 Sylvicola maritima DeKay. Zool. N. Y. 1844. pt 2, p. 104, fig. 132 

 Dendroica tigrina A. 0. U. Check List. Ed. 3. 1910. p. 310. No. 650 

 dendroica, from Gr., meaning tree inhabitant; tigrina, Lat., striped 



Description. Adult male: Side of neck bright yellow; a conspicuous 

 chestnut or orange-rufous ear patch which frequently reaches forward both 

 below and above the eye; crown black; rump yellow; back greenish olive 

 spotted or obscurely streaked with black; under parts principally yellow, 

 changing to white on the belly, conspicuously streaked on the breast and 

 sides with black; wings and tail black edged with the olive green color of 

 the back; a conspicuous white wing patch formed by the tips of the greater 



