The Calaveras Warbler 



Range of Vermivora ruficapilla. — North America, breeding north to the Great 

 Slave Lake, wintering south to Guatemala. 



Range of V. r. gutturalis. — Pacific Coast region, breeding in Transition zone 

 from southern British Columbia and Idaho south to central California, wintering 

 south to Cape San Lucas and Mexico, and occurring eastward during migrations to 

 southeastern Texas. 



Range in California. — Common summer resident in Transition zone from the 

 Greenhorn Mountains in Kern County (Grinnell), north on the west slopes of the 

 Sierras to Shasta, in the Warner Mountains and in the coastal ranges south at least 

 to Mt. Sanhedrin. Also common migrant interiorly, and coastwise west at least to 

 Santa Barbara. 



Authorities. — Baird (Ilelminthophaga ruficapilla), Rep. Pac. R. R. Surv., 

 ix., 1858, p. 923 (Ft. Tejon) ; Osgood, Nidologist, vol. iii., 1896, p. 140 (Sierra Nevada; 

 nest and eggs) ; Barlow, Condor, vol. iii., 1901, p. 175, fig. (Sierra Nevada; occurrence, 

 habits, nest and eggs); McAtee, Auk, vol. xxx., 1913, p. 155 (Angeles Nat. Forest; 

 killed by poison placed in sapsucker holes). 



THERE is something distinct and well-bred about this demure 

 exquisite, and the day which discovers one of them searching the willow 

 tops, with genteel aloofness, is sure to be underscored in the note-book. 

 The marks of the spring male are as unmistakable as they are regal; a 

 bright yellow breast and throat contrasting with the ashy of cheeks and 

 head, the latter shade relieved by a white eye-ring, and surmounted by a 

 chestnut crown-patch. If you stumble upon a company of them at play 

 among the thorn bushes, you are seized as likely as not with a sense of low 

 birth, and feel like retiring in confusion lest you offend royalty. 



These gentle despots are bound for the mountains, and since their 

 realms are not prepared for them till late May or early June, they have 

 ample leisure to discuss the fare of wayside stations. Entering the State 

 from the southeast about the middle of March, the early migrants prob- 

 ably follow the Colorado River, or else tarry for a few days in its friendly 

 woods, before setting out across the desert, whether for the Santa Rosa 

 and San Bernardino Mountains or for the Sierra foothills. The main 

 migratory stream in its northward progress keeps to the Sierras, insomuch 

 that records from the coast ranges are rare. In the great wave which 

 inundated the Santa Barbara coast, however, in the spring of 191 2, 

 Calaveras Warblers were a constant element; and I have a specimen 

 taken on the Santa Ynez Range, April 29th, 1913. 



As the season advances the Calaveras Warblers take up quarters on 

 brushy mountain sides, or in the deciduous skirts of fierce mountain 

 torrents. Here, while the female skurries about through the buck brush 

 or "mountain misery" in search of a suitable nesting site, the male mounts 

 a pine tree and occupies himself with song. If you are spying on this 

 sacred function, the bird first peers down at you uneasily, then throws 



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