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BIRDS OF PENNSYLVANIA. 
Genus GEOTHLYPIS* Cabanis. 
Geothlypis formosa (Wils.). 
Kentucky Warbler. 
Description ( Plate 98). 
Length about 5| ; extent about 9. Top of head black, the feathers edged poste¬ 
riorly with grayish ; the black lores join a broad black patch below eye and connect¬ 
ing with a streak of same on sides of neck ; rest of upper parts greenish-olive ; con¬ 
spicuous superciliary stripe and under parts bright yellow'. 
Female similar but somewhat duller. The young have black obscure or absent. 
Habitat. —Eastern United States, west to the plains, and north to southern New 
England and southern Michigan. In winter, West Indies and Central America. 
This beautiful bird, readily mistaken in the bushes for the Hooded 
Warbler, is a summer resident in Pennsylvania, where it arrives usually 
about May 1st, and remains until, generally, the middle of September. 
As a well-known writer observes the Kentucky Warbler resembles in its 
manners the Water Thrushes, “having the same tilting motion of the 
body and horizontal altitude when perching, so characteristic of these 
birds ”—( Ridgway ). Although greatly like the Oven-bird in many of 
its ways it can easily be distinguished from the latter by its bright yel¬ 
low and immaculate under parts. His song is also much more pleasing 
and different from that of the Oven-bird; the song, Mr. Kidgway f says, 
“ recalls that of the Cardinal, but is much weaker, and its ordinary note 
is a soft pchip, somewhat like that of the Pewee (Sayornis phoebe).” 
Inhabits the thi^k undergrowth of low, damp and boggy woodland; in 
woods and well-sheltered swamps about the borders of forests where 
skunk-cabbage (Symplocarpus fceditus) and spice-wood bushes (.Benzoin 
odoriferum) abound there you mostly will find these active, pugnacious 
and secretive songsters. Like the Oven-bird, this warbler nests on the 
ground, and although the bulky nest is not roofed over, it is equally as 
difficult to discover as that of the Oven-bird. Ten nests which I have 
found in Chester, Delaware and Clarion counties, have all been built in 
damp situations in woods. This species rarely, if ever, I think, nests on 
a dry hillside as the Oven-bird commonly does. 
The Kentucky Warbler is a very common summer resident in differ¬ 
ent localities in southeastern Pennsylvania, being almost as numerous 
as the Maryland Yellow-throat, for which bird it is sometimes mistaken, 
* Legs yellow in dried specimens, but in freshly killed specimens legs are pale flesh color, or light- 
brownish flesh color ; the anterior part of tarsus is darker than posterior part. Bill distinctly notched 
at end ; rictal bristles very short or absent; tail and wings without spots and bands or bars : eyes brown. 
The Connecticut and Kentucky Warblers (subgenus Oporornis of Baird) have moderately stout and 
rather lengthened bills, somewhat depressed at base and rather compressed, particularly in Kentucky 
Warbler, from about middle to end ; wings, long and pointed, considerably longer than the nearly even 
or slightly rounded tail ; first primary longest; tail-feathers acuminate. The Maryland Yellow-throat 
and Mourning Warbler (subgenus Geothlypis of Cabanis) have short rounded wings ; the first primary is 
shorter than second, third and fourth quills ; tail long, about equal to wings, and graduated. 
tOrn. of III., p. 166. 
