2SO MACGILLIVRAY'S WARBLER 



Spring Migration. — The earliest migrants of Macgillivray's War- 

 bler seen in the Huachuca Mountains, Arizona, were recorded April 

 ii, 1902. In southern California a few have been seen as early as 

 the last of March, but the general time of arrival in the southern part 

 of the state is the first ten days in April. The average date of arrival 

 in northern Colorado is May 13 ; at Cheyenne, Wyo., May 14, and at 

 Great Falls, Mont., May 28. Some records of the first birds noted are : 

 Dayton, Ore., about May 2 ; Camp Harney, Ore., about May 1 ; Port- 

 land, Ore., April 29, 1897; Olympia, Wash., April 12, 1904; Tacoma, 

 Wash., April 16, 1905; southern British Columbia, average of three 

 years, May 5, earliest, May 2, 1905. 



The Bird and its Haunts. — Macgillivray's Warbler is a generally 

 common bird in favorable localities throughout the west, I have found 

 it even in the midst of the Wyoming sage plains, where a few willows 

 bordered a snow-born stream. Undergrowth of some kind it requires 

 but the scrub of a dry hillside apparently answers its wants as well 

 as the bushes near water. It is much less demonstrative than a Yellow- 

 throat (Geothlypis) and seems to try to avoid being seen either by 

 remaining in cover or by a quick low flight to more distant cover, and 

 were not its song too pronounced to be overlooked the bird might 

 easily escape attention. 



In California, Walter Fisher (MS) writes: "This is a very quiet 

 little bird and is common in the Sierra Nevada Mountains among 

 prickly ceanothus, deer-brush, wild cherry, and clumps of willow, often 

 frequenting the vicinity of water, but as often found far from. it. It 

 lives in much the same country that is occupied by the Calaveras War- 

 bler, from which it may be readily distinguished by its gray head and 

 more retiring habits. There is something wren-like in the way Mac- 

 gillivray's Warbler moves through its miniature jungle, shyly eyes the 

 observer, and then vanishes noiselessly." 



Song. — "Their ordinary song-notes, chee-chee-chee-chee, I could 

 not positively discriminate from those of Wilson's Black-cap [=Wil- 

 sonia p. pileolata], when the two sang on either side of me in a thicket. 

 To these chee-che-chu, or a few terminal notes, may be added. Some- 

 times, however, in May, this little Warbler has a fit of ecstasy, and, with 

 a short, nervous flight bursts into sweet song, although not so liquid 

 as his eastern cousin's.'' (Minot 1 .) 



Nesting Site. — The nest is generally placed in briars or small 

 bushes from six inches to two feet from the ground, but Minot 1 re- 

 cords an unusually situated one from Colorado, as built in a scrub oak 

 five feet from the ground. 



