The Yellow Warblers 



THE TAKING of a juvenal example of the Virginia Warbler by 

 Mr. Halsted G. White, of the staff of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, 

 while at work in the White Mountains, justifies the pleasant presumption 

 that this shy and dainty species may be found as a regular breeder upon 

 our timbered desert ranges. 



Virginia resembles "Lucy" (V. lucice) so closely that one suspects 

 the change of color on the rump and the added touch of yellow on the 

 breast to be mere devices, like different colored hair ribbon, whereby 

 Mother Nature may herself distinguish her twin daughters. Virginia 

 is a bird of the mountains, never allowing herself to be seen, according 

 to Howard, 1 below the 5000 foot level. Here she haunts the thickets 

 of ceanothus and cercocarpus, or else the underbrush among the pines. 

 The slightest suspicion of danger causes the little sprite to dash into 

 the brush, whence issues thereafter only a shifting and elusive, though 

 perfectly characteristic, chip. The male Virginia (we ought, perhaps, 

 to call him Virginius) is indefatigable in song. He sings at his work, 

 which, of course, is bug-catching. And when his appetite is satisfied, 

 he mounts a neighboring treetop and makes a business of entertaining 

 his lady love. The song is highly variable, but resembles more or less 

 that of the Lucy Warbler, common forms being, according to Minot: 

 Che-we-che-we-che-we-che-we, wit-a-wit' -wit' -wit' , and che-we-che-we, che-a- 

 che-a-che. 



The nest is placed upon the ground, among the pine needles or in 

 the shelter of nodding grasses, so cleverly concealed at times that search 

 must be made on hands and knees, even when the location is known 

 within a foot or so. The greatest circumspection is observed by the 

 birds, both in approaching and in leaving their nests; for where the eyes 

 of humans are dull, the eyes of snakes are glittering sharp, and the eyes of 

 jays are backed by a cunning which is almost second sight. 



No. 83 



Yellow Warbler 



No. 83a Sonora Yellow Warbler 



A. O. U. No. 652a. Dendroica aestiva sonorana Brewster. 



Description. — Adult male: Similar to that of D. a. brewsteri, but brighter, 

 clearer yellow (less olivaceous) above; the forehead more strongly or extensively tinged 

 with mars yellow; the upper back obscurely streaked with chestnut or dull chestnut; 

 the chestnut streaking of underparts much reduced, the streaks narrower or obsolete. 



'Bull. Cooper Orn. Club (Condor), Vol. I., July 1899, pp. 63, 64. 

 460 



