The Alaska Myrtle Warbler 



pale buffy brown, the last more or less streaked with black; lateral yellow pectoral 

 patches less distinct than in summer, usually tinged with brownish and flecked with 

 dusky; black sublateral pectoral patches broken by broad white margins to feathers; 

 wings and tail as in summer, but white bands across former more or less brownish" 

 (Ridgway). Immature male: Like adult male in autumn, but buffy element more 

 strongly represented, and black of chest and sides less strongly developed (?). Adult 

 female in spring and summer: Like male in summer, but smaller and duller; brownish 

 gray largely displacing the bluish gray of upperparts; the yellow areas (except that of 

 rump) more restricted, both by encroachment and by blackish streaks on tips; the black 

 of breast and sides reduced by broadening of white edgings; sides of head brownish 

 black or brownish gray. Adult female in autumn and winter and immature: Like male 

 in winter but upperparts more decidedly brown; the black streaks much softer or want- 

 ing; the lateral yellow patches saffron-tinged, or wanting; the coronal patch entirely 

 overlaid with brown tips. Length of adult males: 129 (5.08); wing 74.1 (2.92); tail 

 56.2 (2.21) ; bill 10 (.39) ; tarsus 19.6 (.77). Length of adult females: 130 (5.12) ; wing 

 70.5 (2.775); tail 56.1 (2.21); bill 9.2 (.36); tarsus 18.7 (.736) — (After Ridgway under 

 D. coronata). Five adult males, northern-taken, in the M. V. Z. colls, average: wing 

 75-7 ( 2 -98); tail 59.5 (2.34); and apparently sustain the contention that Alaskan birds 

 are to be distinguished by slightly greater lengths of wing and tail. 



Remarks. — The very characteristics, viz., longer wing and tail, alleged to 

 distinguish hooveri from coronata, mark the form as the acme of the northwestern mi- 

 gratory trend which carried (and still carries) coronata from its winter home in the 

 Antilles north and west (via the edge of the Mackenzo-Laurentian ice sheet) to extreme 

 Alaska. Hooveri is, therefore, the extreme of the most vigorous coronata stock; and the 

 greatly lessened annual flights which those who winter in California indulge, must 

 eventually operate to reduce, and so render indistinguishable, the very character upon 

 which its differentiation is now based (for length of wing is a well-recognized function 

 of exertion). 



Recognition Marks. — Large warbler size. Much like D. auduboni, from which 

 distinguished chiefly by white throat of adult birds; tchip note much softer. Females 

 in autumn and winter and immature males are marked by at least a trace of yellow on 

 the sides of the throat; while immature females of the two species may be absolutely 

 indistinguishable out of hand (save by note). Yellow rump always a distinctive mark 

 of this and the succeeding species. 



Nesting. — Does not breed in California. Nest and eggs, probably indistinguish- 

 able from those of D. coronata, described as follows: Nest of weed-stalks, twigs, vege- 

 table fibers, and grasses, lined with fine grasses and feathers; and placed five or ten feet 

 up on horizontal branch of coniferous tree. Eggs: 3 to 5; dull white, speckled and 

 spotted or blotched, chiefly about larger end, with snuff-brown, buffy brown, and vin- 

 aceous gray. Av. size, 17.3 x 12.7 (.68 x .50). 



Range of D. coronata. — North America, except (?) the Rocky Mountain and intra- 

 mountain states. Breeds from the mountains of the northeastern states, northern 

 Michigan, etc., nearly throughout Canada north to the limit of trees and in Alaska. 

 Winters in the eastern states, sparingly from the latitude of Kansas and New Jersey, 

 increasingly south through the Antilles and to Mexico and Panama; in the Pacific 

 States south to southern California; also in Arizona, — four records (Swarth). 



Range of D. c. hooveri. — Presumably the western portions of the range of 

 D. coronata, in Alaska, south in winter to California. 



Distribution in California. — Not uncommon winter resident and migrant in 



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