590 MICHIGAN BIRD LIFE. 
TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION. 
Adult male: Top and sides of head gray, the back, rump and upper tail-coverts bright 
olive-green; wing and tail feathers dusky, edged with olive and often margined at the 
tips with white; a yellowish white streak from the forehead over the eye; under parts 
white or grayish white, purest on the belly and under tail-coverts, grayer and often yellowish 
on throat and breast; no wing-bars or conspicuous tail-markings. Adult female similar 
to male, but with some olive-green on the top of the head and the under parts usually 
washed with yellowish. Rather larger than the Nashville. 
Length 4.50 to 5 inches; wing 2.75; tail 1.60 to 2. 
269. Northern Parula Warbler. Compsothlypis americana usnee Brewst. 
(648a) 
Synonyms: Blue Yellow-backed Warbler, Blue Yellow-back, Northern Blue Yellow- 
back.—Sylvia americana, Bonap., 1826.—Parula americana, Bonap., 1838, and most 
authors until 1884.—Compsothlypis americana, Stejn., 1884, part, A. O. U., Check-list, 
1886, part, and most recent authors.—Compsothlypis americana usnee, Brewster, 1896. 
Smallest of our warblers. Gray-blue above, with a conspicuous patch 
of greenish-yellow in the middle of the back; throat and breast mainly 
yellow, the latter with a broad girdle of mottled chestnut and black; two 
white wing-bars, and half the tail-feathers white spotted. 
Distribution.—New England, New York and westward along the northern 
tier of states, and northward into the Maritime Provinces and Ontario, 
migrating southward beyond the United States in winter. 
This beautiful little warbler is not uncommon during migration in 
most parts of the state, although it seems to be irregularly distributed. 
It is rather late in arriving from the south, although 8. E. White reported 
it at Grand Rapids in 1890 as early as April 22, and again on April 30 
and May 2. In Ingham county it usually comes between the 5th and 
15th of May, and specimens have been killed on Spectacle Reef Light, 
Lake Huron, as early as May 5 and 7, 1889 and May 11, 1888,"while others 
struck that light on May 17, 1885, May 19, 1893 and May 21, 1891. The 
species also remains rather late in the fall, since specimens were killed 
on Presque Isle Light, Lake Huron, September 15, 1890, Spectacle Reef 
Light, September 17, 1893, and one was taken on Charity Island, September 
26, 1910 (N. A. Wood). Undoubtedly a good many linger until the latter 
part of September, and Mr. Swales records one in the neighborhood of 
Detroit October 14, 1905, and J. C. Wood took one October 16, 1909. 
In its habits it combines the actions of warbler, chickadee and kinglet, 
as it often hangs head downward from a terminal bud or a bunch of leaves, 
and frequently hovers like a kinglet before a leaf or flower. It also creeps 
up and down branches, and in fact takes any position possible to any one 
of our small birds. 
Its food seems to consist entirely of insects, and it must be very useful 
to the horticulturist in its destruction of plant-lice, leaf-rollers and span- 
worms. During its migration it is perhaps rather more likely to be found 
among hardwood growths than among the evergreens, but its presence 
seems mainly determined by the abundance of its insect food and it 
frequents alike willow thickets, orchards and the tops of the higher forest 
trees. 
Undoubtedly it nests throughout a large part of the state, but owing 
to the character of the places frequented it is seldom noted during the 
nesting season, and the nest appears to have been found only a few times. 
