OVEN-BIRD. 99 



25, 1885, September 30, 1886, and September 20, 1887. The earliest 

 recorded dates on which the Sombrero Key lighthouse was struck by 

 south Avard migrants are August 22 and 23, 1889; but the bulk of the 

 birds pass by after September 16, and the larger flights occur during 

 the ten days from September 29 to October 9. The regular migration 

 may be considered closed by the middle of October, the only dates 

 later than this on which migrants were observed being November 4, 

 1888, at Sombrero Key, and November 6, 1891, at Fowey Kocks. 

 Since the regular spring migration begins about the 1st of March, 

 the prairie warbler spends at least five months in its winter home, and 

 many individuals remain a month longer. 



674. Seiurus aurocapillus (Linn. ). Oven-bird. 



Breeding range. — The oven-bird breeds from Kansas and Virginia 

 north to Alaska, Hudson Bay, the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and New- 

 foundland, and south in the Alleghenies to South Carolina. It ranges 

 west to Colorado and Montana, and accidentally to British Columbia. 

 A few of the species breed in the northern Bahamas. 



Winter range. — The winter range of the oven-bird covers a wide 

 range of longitude, from the Pacific coast of Mexico at Mazatlan to 

 Colombia, South America. It is strange that the species should occur 

 at Mazatlan, as it is a bird of the eastern United States, with but 

 scattering records west of Kansas. It is seldom that a Mississippi 

 Valley bird goes into western Mexico, for the general direction of 

 migration is south and southeast. United States birds that winter in 

 western Mexico usually come from California and the Pacific coast 

 region. But the oven-bird, which was originally reported by Grayson^* 

 as occurring from November to April at Mazatlan, was found in March 

 and April, 1899, in that vicinity by one of the parties of the Biological 

 Survey. 



In eastern Mexico the oven-bird winters from Monterey, Nuevo 

 Leon, to eastern Oaxaca, being rare in both these places, but common 

 along the coast of Tabasco and abundant in Yucatan. It has been 

 reported in Mexico at as high elevation as -1,000 feet, but, with the 

 exception of a few noted at Monterey, all the individuals seen b}^ the 

 parties of the Biological Survey were at less than a thousand feet alti- 

 tude. The species is common in the lower parts of Guatemala and 

 ranges in smaller numbers to nearl}^ 5,000 feet. It has been taken in 

 Honduras at Omoa and on the islands of Kuatan ^ and Bonacca,^ on the 

 north coast. In Nicaragua a few individuals have been seen at Lake 

 Nicaragua,^ on the southeastern coast,^^ and at Greytown.'' In Costa 



« Lawrence, Mem. Bos. Soc. Nat. Hist. II, p. 269, 1874. 

 & Salvin, Ibis, p. 251, 1888. 



<; Nutting, Proc. U. 8. Nat. Mas., VI, p. 381, 1883. 

 taiichmond, Proc. U. 8. Nat. Mas., XVI, p. 484, 1893. 

 « Lawrence, Am. Lye. Nat. Hist., A'lII, p. 179, 1865. 



