612 MICHIGAN BIRD LIFE. 
are informed hy Mr. G. A. Abbott of Chicago that a friend of his observed 
the Black-poll Warbler on Mackinac Island on about half a dozen occasions 
between June 28 and July 15, 1906, but that no nests were found. 
The food consists mainly of insects and the bird eats immense numbers 
of span-worms and plant-lice at all times of year. In the fall they also 
eat some seeds and berries, but they are mainly insectivorous and are 
expert flycatchers, taking much of their food on the wing. Forbes found 
that two-thirds of the food of those taken in an orchard overrun with 
cankerworms consisted of those worms, while 19 percent consisted of 
beetles, 4 percent of ants, and 5 percent of gnats. 
The usual nesting grounds of this species are the evergreen forests of 
the far north, where they frequent the edges of the coniferous swamps 
and place the nests usually on the horizontal branches of the thick ever- 
greens at five to ten feet from the ground. The nest is similar to that of 
the Bay-breast just described, but perhaps contains more grass and weed 
stems. The eges are four or five, white or buffy white, speckled with 
brown and lilac, occasionally with black specks. They average .72 by .53 
inches. 
The song of the Black-poll is not noteworthy. While migrating its 
common call sounds like “sit-sit-sit” or ‘“seet-seet-seet,” repeated rather 
rapidly, and the notes rising in regular gradation. 
TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION. 
Adult male: Entire top of head coal-black, sometimes with a few ashy streaks; rest 
of upper parts gray or olive-gray, streaked with black; sides of head and neck white or 
nearly so, separated from the white throat by a chain of black spots and streaks which 
begins on the chin and extends along either side to the flanks; breast and belly white, 
unspotted; two white wing-bars; two or three outer tail-feathers with rather small white 
patches on inner webs near tip; upper mandible black, lower mandible much lighter. 
Temale similar, but without the black cap, the upper parts olive-gray streaked with black; 
under parts less sharply streaked than in male. Young of the year entirely unlike the 
adult; upper parts olive or olive-gray more or less streaked with dusky; under parts soiled 
or yellowish-white, with indistinct gray streaks; under tail-coverts white; wing and tail 
markings as in adult, but tertials margined with white, and inner primaries often tipped 
with the same. 
Length 5 to 5.75 inches; wing 2.80 to 2.90; tail 2.05 to 2.25; female slightly smaller. 
Note.—The young of this species in autumn is separable with difficulty from the Bay- 
breasted Warbler of the same age, but the present specics always has white under tail- 
coverts while those of the Bay-breast are always distinctly yellowish or buffy. 
279. Blackburnian Warbler. Dendroica fusca (A/ull.). (662) 
Synonyms: Hemlock Warbler, Torch-bird, Vire-brand.—Motacilla fusea, Miller, 
1776.—Sylvia or Sylvicola blackburniz, of the older ornithologists, Dendroica or Dendrocca 
blackburniw, of the more recent writers.—Sylvia or Sylvicola parus of Bonaparte, Nuttall 
and Aubudon. 
Mainly black and white, the throat and a spot on top of head, bright 
yellow, orange or flame-color. A large white patch on the wing and nearly 
all the tail-feathers white marked. 
Distribution.—Eastern North America, west to eastern Kansas and 
Manitoba, breeding from the southern Alleghanies, Massachusetts, and 
Michigan, northward to Labrador. In winter, south to the Bahamas, 
eastern Mexico, Central America, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. 
This perhaps is our most brilliant warbler, and although frequently 
seen during migration does not appear to be abundant anywhere. Occa- 
