112 MNIOTILTID^. 



Southern and Central Illinois, Missouri, and in Kentucky ; but stragglers are occa- 

 sionally met with as far north as Washington and even New Brunswick. Dr. Woodhouse 

 also observed it in numbers in Texas, where, however, recent observers do not mention 

 its occurrence. Its time of residence in these districts extends from April to October, 

 during which it breeds. The rest of the year it spends within the tropics, its line of 

 migration nearly coinciding with that of Geothlypis Philadelphia. It is found in 

 Northern Yucatan ; but nowhere else in Mexico or Central America until we come to 

 Costa Rica, where, and in the State of Panama, a few specimens have been obtained. 

 In the Southern continent its range seems confined to the north-western coast, as 

 specimens have reached us from the State of Antioquia^ ^, the neighbourhood of Santa 

 Marta, and from near Merida in Venezuela '^. In its spring migration it is occasionally 

 (but rarely) met with in Cuba in the month of April ^^, but not elsewhere in the 

 Antilles. 



The bird is described as being one of the shyest and most silent of all the Warblers. 

 Its place of abode is usually in bushy swamps on the margin of stagnant pools. Its 

 nest is placed in a hollow snag, a Woodpecker's hole being often chosen for its site i^. 



HELMINTHOTHEEUS. 



Helmitherus , Eafinesque, Journ. de Phys. Ixxxviii. p. 417 (1819) (fide Baird) . (Type Motacilla ver- 



mivora, Gm.) 

 Helmitherus, Baird, Brew. & Ridgw. N. Am. B. i. p. 186. 



Two not very closely allied species are usually placed in this genus — H. vermivorus, 

 the bird treated of below, and H. swainsoni, a rare species of which little is knovra, a 

 few specimens only having as yet been met with in the South-eastern States and in 

 Cuba and Jamaica. For the latter bird a separate generic name Helinaia was proposed 

 by Audubon. Helminthotherus, though dijffering greatly in coloration, is structurally not 

 far removed from Protonotaria, and has a long bill like that bird, and the middle toe 

 about equal to the tarsus. The bill, however, is rather stouter, the culmen somewhat 

 depressed, and the rictal bristles more fully developed. H. vermivorus is a strictly 

 migratory species, spending the winter in Mexico and Central America. 



1. Helminthotherus vermivorus. 



Motacilla vermivora, Gm. Syst. Nat. i. p. 951^. 



Helmitherus vermivorus, Scl. & Salv. Ibis, 1859/ p. 11'; Scl. P. Z. S. 1859, p. 363'; Cab. J. f. 



Om. 1860, p. 328*; Baird, Rev. Am. B. i. p. 179=; Lawr. Ann. Lye. N. Y. ix. pp. 94°, 



200'; Sumichrast, Mem. Bost. Soc. N. H. i. p. 546'; Baird, Brew. & Ridgw. N. Am, B. i. 



p. 187"; Gundl. Orn. Cub. p. 63". 

 Helmintherus vermivorus, Salv. P.Z. S. 1867, p. 135 "; Prantz. J. f. Om. 1869, p. 293"; Cones, 



B. Col. Vail. i. p. 211". 

 Vermivora pennsylvanica, Gosse, B. Jam. p. 150" (ex Sw.). 



