LAND BIRDS. 585 
washed with yellow on the breast. Fall specimens are more heavily washed with yellow, 
and the upper parts are margined with olive-green. Adult female: Similar, but wing- 
bars white, and crown not so bright” (Chapman). 
265. Golden-winged Warbler. Vermivora chrysoptera (Linn.). (642) 
Synonyms: Golden-winged Swamp Warbler, Blue Golden-winged Warbler.—Motacilla 
chrysoptera, Linn., 1766.—Sylvia chrysoptera, Vieill., Wils., Nutt., Aud.—Helminthophaga 
chrysoptera, Baird, 1858.—Helminthophila chrysoptera, Ridgw., 1882, A. O. U. Check- 
list, 1886, and most subsequent writers. 
Crown and patch on wing bright yellow; throat and band through the 
eye black, with white line between; three or four pairs of tail-feathers 
white blotched. 
Distribution.—Eastern United States, north to southern New England, 
southwestern Ontario and southern Minnesota; breeding from northern 
New Jersey and northern Indiana northward, and southward along the 
Alleghanies to South Carolina. Central America and northern South 
America in winter. 
This beautiful warbler is irregularly distributed over the southern half 
of the Lower Peninsula during summer, arriving from the south about 
the first to the twelfth of May, and retreating southward in August or 
early September. Probably it nests wherever found, although it is re- 
ported at several points in the Lower Peninsula as a migrant only. This 
is one of the warblers which have varied in numbers remarkably in late 
years. Fifteen or twenty years ago it was very abundant in Monroe 
county, where Mr. Trombley found it nesting commonly; at present it 
has almost disappeared from that region. In the neighborhood of Lansing, 
from 1895 to about 1898, it was also fairly abundant, probably exceeding 
in numbers the common Yellow Warbler, although that species was far 
from abundant. Since 1900, however, the Golden-wing has not been 
noticed frequently, and although a few nest here every season it is far 
from common. It is reported as a common breeder near Detroit by Swales, 
J. C. Wood and Taverner; as common and breeding at Manchester 
(Watkins); Grand Rapids (Cole); Ann Arbor (N. A. Wood, R. H. Wolcott, 
A. B. Covert.) At Kalamazoo it was formerly a regular migrant and 
breeder, but never very abundant, and the same appears to be the case 
at Port Huron where Mr. Hazelwood notes it as a migrant, but thinks 
it does not nest. The most northern record for the state is Mackinac 
Island, where Mr. 8. E. White states that in 1891 a number were constantly 
observed up to July 26, although none had been seen in the two previous 
years. It was not found by Wood and Frothingham in Otsego, Crawford, 
Oscoda or Alcona counties, nor has the writer found it at any of the points 
visited in the upper part of the Lower Peninsula. So far as our present 
information goes the bird is practically restricted to the region south of 
the forty-fourth parallel and its occurrence north of that point must be 
considered as purely accidental. 
The nest is placed invariably on the ground, usually in the edge of woods 
or in bushy pastures, often at the foot of a shrub or tree, and usually well 
hidden. It is built of various fibrous materials and often lined with fine 
roots and hair. The eggs are four or five, white, speckled with brown, 
chiefly at the larger end, and average .64 by .53 inches. 
The song of the Golden-wing is hardly more than a lisping twitter, 
consisting of a repetition of the syllables see, see, see or tseep, tseep, tseep. 
