1^22] Swarth: Birds and Mammals of the Stikine Region 287 



Dendroica aestiva aestiva (Gmelin). Eastern Yellow Warbler 



A few seen near Telegraph Creek on May 26 were the first ob- 

 served, but the .species may have arrived some days earlier. The first 

 week in June the birds were abundant and quite generally distributed 

 through the lower valleys. The males were especially noticeable from 

 their habit of perching at the tops of dead and leafless trees, and there 

 singing. The loud song and brilliant color, with no concealing ver- 

 dure round about, rendered them as conspicuous as such small birds 

 could well be. On June 14 a set of three slightly incubated eggs was 

 taken (no. 1822). The nest was in a cottonwood sapling, some twelve 

 feet from the ground, at the edge of a dense thicket. 



At Doeh-da-on Creek, the latter part of July, yellow warblers were 

 fairly numerous, and apparently on the move. At Flood Glacier, 

 early in August, and at Great Glacier, about the middle of the month, 

 they were seen frequently, though not in such numbers as had been 

 present farther up the river. 



Eighteen specimens of yellow warbler were collected at points 

 on the Stikine River (nos. 40156-40173). The series comprises six 

 adult males and three adult females from Telegraph Creek, three adult 

 males from Glenora, one juvenal female from Doeh-da-on Creek, and 

 one adult female and four immature females from Flood Glacier. 



Dendroica aestiva ruhiginosa is commonly considered as occupying 

 both the coast and the interior of Alaska and northern British 

 Columbia (see A. 0. U. Committee, 1910, p. 311; Eidgway, 1902, 

 p. 514; E. M. Anderson, 1915a, p. 16), but on how extensive a repre- 

 sentation of specimens these opinions were based I do not know. My 

 Stikine River series is certainly suificiently different from the coastal 

 bird to forbid the two lots from being considered of the same sub- 

 species. The series of ruhiginosa in the collection of this Museum 

 includes thirteen adult males from Vancouver Island and southeastern 

 Alaska. These birds are distinguished in color from other North 

 American races of Dendroica aestiva primarily by the combination 

 of dark dorsal coloration, paler yellow underparts, and narrow and 

 scanty chestnut streaking below. The Telegraph Creek birds do not 

 fit into this category at all. In this series the underparts are more 

 brilliantly yellow, and the chestnut streaks, are, in most of the speci- 

 mens, numerous, broad, and conspicuous. As a series the lot fits in 

 absolutely with D. aestiva aestiva, in regard to ventral coloration. 

 In dorsal coloration they average somewhat darker than is the case 

 in an equally extensive series of eastern examples of aestiva, though 



