354 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 



220. Geothlypis trichas brachidactyla (Swains.). 

 Northern Yellow-throat. 



Abundant summer resident ; of occasional occurrence in winter, also. 



SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. 



May I, 1879, °"s ^^- "^^'^ ^ taken, Belmont, W. Brewster. 



May 5 — October 20. (Winter.) 

 November 8, 1879, one seen, snow on ground, Arlington, C. W. Townsend. 



NESTING DATES. 



May 25 — June 5. 



According to Dr. William Palmer ^ the true Maryland Yellow-throat does 

 not range to the northward of New Jersey, its place being taken in New 

 England by a form subspecifically distinct, which is now called the Northern 

 Yellow-throat, to which the scientific name brachidactyla, originally proposed by 

 Swainson, is applied. As these names have been passed upon and accepted by 

 the A. O. U. Committee, I use them in the present connection although I have 

 no strong faith that they will prove lasting, at least in their application to our 

 New England bird. The characters by which the two forms are said to be 

 separable seem to me trivial and I fear they are also inconstant, for I have 

 specimens taken in Massachusetts and Connecticut which I cannot distinguish 

 from typical examples of trichas from the Middle States. 



The so-called Northern Yellow-throat breeds throughout the Fresh Pond 

 Swamps in numbers which are exceeded only by those of the Yellow Warbler, 

 the Swamp Sparrow and the Red-winged Blackbird. It is also very common at 

 Rock Meadow. In both localities its favorite haunts are thickets of low bushes 

 and beds of cattail flags or of rank marsh grasses, about the borders of pools 

 and ditches. Elsewhere in the Cambridge Region the bird is sparingly but 

 generally distributed along the courses of brooks and around the edges of 

 swamps and meadows. Although at all times partial to wet places it is by no 

 means confined to them. I have twice found it nesting in ground junipers in 

 perfectly dry upland pastures near Arlington Heights, and at its seasons of 



iNo. 4516, collection of William Brewster. 

 ^W. Palmer, Auk, XVII, 1900, 216-242. 



