The Black-and-white Warbler 



and many linger in more northerly localities till near the first of June. 

 On the other hand, I took a set of four fresh eggs from a mountain mahog- 

 any bush in the Warners (alt. 7800 ft.) on the 12th of July, 1912. William 

 Oberlin Dawson found an incomplete set of two eggs in Los Canoes Can- 

 yon, near Santa Barbara, on the 9th of June, 191 5; but the Jays, Aphelo- 

 coma californica, cleaned it out before we could get back to it. This 

 record is remarkable chiefly for having been made well within the bounds 

 of Upper Sonoran territory. 



What the birds do with themselves after the nesting season is over 

 is a subject that has not been enough inquired into. The birds will not 

 take us with them on their leisurely mountain rambles, and our feeble 

 trail of inquiry all too frequently ends with the deserted nest. But I'll 

 confess I was surprised to find the Tanagers at Simpson Meadows, on the 

 Middle Fork of the Kings River, in July, assiduously haunting the vicinity 

 of the river itself. What they found I do not know — insects of one cer- 

 tain brand, perhaps; but I do know that they hawked and fluttered back 

 and forth across the raging torrent even more assiduously than the Soli- 

 taires {Myadestes townsendi). The Tanagers combined the roles of Fly- 

 catcher and Ouzel, for they would alight unhesitatingly upon the rocks 

 which cut the foaming water, even when they had to cling tightly to resist 

 the accompanying rush of air. Again, in the Tehipite Canyon, I saw a fly- 

 catching Tanager who courted the hollow of the roaring torrent where his 

 only rivals were a Wood Pewee and a Spotted Sandpiper, — the latter, it 

 must be confessed, seemingly as much out of character beside the merci- 

 less stream as himself. 



No. 77 



Black-and-white Warbler 



A. O. U. No. 636. Mniotilta varia (Linnaeus). 



Synonyms. — Tree-creeping Warbler. Black-and-white Creeper. 



Description. — Adult male: Chiefly black and white in streaks and stripes; 

 two lustrous black stripes separated by broad median white stripe on head and pro- 

 longed to cervix; eye-ring and superciliary stripe white; malar stripes, broadly, and 

 usually extreme chin white; throat, narrowly, black, or broadly with some admixture 

 of white; exposed tips of primaries and tertiaries and primary coverts dusky rather 

 than black; median and greater coverts tipped with white, broadly, and forming two 

 conspicuous stripes; rectrices chiefly dusky with bluish ashy skirtings on outer web; 

 the two outer pairs of feathers white-blotched near tip of inner web, and all narrowly 

 edged with white; upper tail-coverts broadly black; axillars, lining of wings, and belly 

 white; remaining plumage streaked black and white, broadly and sharply on breast, 

 sides, and flanks, narrowly on sides of neck, less sharply defined on back. Bill black; 



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