The Yellowthroats 



GRINNELL counts the records of this bird's occurrence like pearls 

 on a string, and chuckles each time a jewel is added. Alas! for the 

 author that he has no pearl to add ! But how will a gem from Arizona 

 do? (the seventh, Mr. Swarth tells me, from that State). 



It was May 8th, 191 7. I was seated on the bluff bank of the Santa 

 Cruz "River" (save the mark! it was a piddling trickle at this season) 

 in the heart of the famous mesquite forest south of Tucson. The boast- 

 ful notes of the White-winged Doves still filled the air, but the sun 

 was getting well up, and most of the other birds had fallen silent. It 

 was time to heave to and play the waiting game. Noting a stir, pres- 

 ently, in the recesses of a great root, which lay thirty feet below me 

 in the edge of the streamlet, I languidly applied the glasses. It was 

 well I did so, for out stepped as jaunty a dancer as ever confronted 

 the Theatre Francais. Daintily he teetered and daintily progressed 

 across the area of green scum which bordered the runlet. He picked 

 his way and he picked his food with equal fastidiousness; and though 

 his streaked suit is of the most conventional fashion, I was struck by 

 the note of haunting yellowness which Brooks has hit off so well in his 

 painting. It was as though the bird carried a sort of yellow aureole 

 which yet scarcely tinged his garments. Nothing could have exceeded 

 the trim jauntiness or the well-bred demureness of this titled, ogled, 

 multitudinously coveted fowl; and I could easily imagine that he was 

 stopping to admire himself as he paused beside a clear pool of water. 

 A Vermilion Flycatcher, surely some charmer himself, for he was a splen- 

 did male, hopped about the neighboring roots in friendly fashion, and 

 the gentleman from Alaska seemed nothing loth to join fellowship. 

 Er — that's all. The bird flew. 



No. 98 



Yellowthroat 



No. 98a Western Yellowthroat 



A. O. U. No. 681a. Geothlypis trichas occidentalis Brewster. 



Description. — Adult male in spring and summer: Above grayish olive-green 

 (buffy olive to olive-citrine), brighter (less gray) on upper tail-coverts and tail, changing 

 abruptly to brownish olive (Saccardo's olive) on cervix and crown; an obliquely de- 

 scending facial mask of black, involving forehead, lores, space about eyes, cheeks, and 

 (more narrowly) sides of neck; along the posterior margin of this mask a narrow band, 

 or fillet, of white, abruptly contrasting anteriorly, shading posteriorly; chin, throat, 

 breast, bend of wing, and under tail-coverts, rich yellow (lemon-chrome); sides of breast 

 and sides heavily shaded with olive-gray (buff-citrine to dark olive-buffy), the color 

 shading and lightening as it crosses lower breast and belly. Bill blackish above, dark 

 horn-color below; feet and legs pale brownish. Adult male in autumn: Much as in 



504 



