The Oven-bird 

 No. 95 



Oven-bird 



A. O. U. No. 674. Seiurus aurocapillus (Linnaeus). 



Synonyms. — Golden-crowned Accentor. Golden-crowned Thrush. 



Description. — Adult (female very slightly duller): Above buffy olive; top of 

 head with two blackish lateral stripes, the enclosed area ochraceous-orange ("golden" 

 only by courtesy), slightly veiled by olive-buffy tips of feathers; sides of head washed 

 with color of back; lores, obscurely, and ring about eye, whitish; below white, broadly 

 and sharply spotted on breast, sides of breast, and sides, with blackish; a narrow black 

 malar stripe; axillars and under wing-coverts pale sulphur; flanks pale olive-buffy, 

 shaded by darker; extreme flanks, possibly of immature birds, sometimes tinged with 

 yellow. Bill horn-color above, pale below; feet and legs light brownish. The species 

 exhibits little change with age, sex, or season, but plumage is brighter, fresher, in the 

 fall. Length (sexes equal), 139.7-165.1 (5.50-6.50); wing 72.5 (2.85); tail 52 (2.05); 

 bill 11. 5 (.45); tarsus 13.2 (.52). 



Recognition Marks. — Small sparrow size; general thrush-like appearance; 

 head-stripes with included "golden" crown distinctive. 



Nesting. — Does not breed in' California. Nest: On the ground in deep woods; 

 a slight depression lined and completely overarched with leaves, grasses, bark-strips, 

 and trash, and with entrance at side. Eggs: 4 or 5, rarely 6; white, or creamy white, 

 speckled and spotted lightly and uniformly, or heavily and with tendency toward 

 wreathing or cloud-capping, with dull reddish brown (sometimes as dull as benzo 

 brown) and brownish drab. Av. size, 20.3 x 15. 2 (.80 x .60). 



General Range. — Eastern and northern North America; breeds from south- 

 western Mackenzie (casually in the lower Yukon Valley), northern Ontario and New- 

 foundland, south to central Alberta, Colorado, southern Missouri and Virginia, and 

 in the mountains of South Carolina and Georgia; winters from central Florida and the 

 Louisiana coast south through the West Indies to Colombia. 



Occurrence in California. — One record of two birds on the Farallons; one 

 of them taken, May 28, 191 1. Also the first clearly authenticated mainland record by 

 Richard Hunt as below. 



Authorities. — Bonaparte, Compte Rendu, 1854, p. 385 ("California"); Dawson, 

 Condor, vol. xiii., 191 1, p. 167 (Farallon Ids., May 29, 191 1, two seen); Hunt, Condor, 

 vol. xxii., 1920, p. 191 (Lavic, Mohave Desert, May 18, 1920, one spec). 



THE LIST of "casual" warblers in California is already very large, 

 and it seems probable that most, if not all, of such eastern warblers as 

 breed above the northern tier of states, will eventually be recorded as 

 wanderers into our domain. 



This familiar spirit of every eastern woodland was one, or rather 

 two, of a band of waifs which came to the Farallon Islands on the morning 

 of May 26th, 191 1. One bird, an adult male in prime feather, was 

 caught in an empty room of a light-keeper's house, and is now in the 

 California Academy collection. Another, first seen a few minutes later 



