iWWSf-Km'" mm'w ' ^ Ti/ii SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTIONUNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMBulletin 197 LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICANWAGTAILS, SHRIKES, VIREOS, ANDTHEIR ALLIESORDER PASSERIFORMES BYARTHUR CLEVELAND BENTTaunton, Massachusetts UNITED STATESGOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICEWASHINGTON : 1950 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U. S. Government Printing OfficeWashington 25, D. C. - Price gl.SO ADVERTISEMENTThe scientific publications of the National Museum include two seriesknown, respectively, as Proceedings and Bulletin.The Proceedings series, begun in 1878, is intended primarily as amedium for the publication of original papers, based on the collectionsof the National Museum, that set forth newly acquired facts in biology,anthropology, and geology, with descriptions of new forms and re-visions of limited groups. Copies of each paper, in pamphlet form,are distributed as published to libraries and scientific organizationsand to specialists and others interested in the different subjects. Thedates at which these separate papers are published are recorded in thetable of contents of each of the volumes.The series of Bulletins^ the first of which was issued in 1875, con-tains separate publications comprising monographs of large zoologi-cal groups and other general systematic treatises (occasionally in sev-eral volumes), faunal works, reports of expeditions, catalogs of typespecimens, special collections, and other material of similar nature.The majority of the volumes are octavo in size, but a quarto size hasbeen adopted in a few instances in which large plates were regardedas indispensable. In the Bulletin series appear volumes under theheading Contnhutions from the United States National Her-bariuin.^ inoctavo form, published by the National Museum since 1902, whichcontain papers relating to the botanical collections of the Museum.The present work forms No. 197 of the Bulletin series.Alexander Wetmore,Secretary^ Smithsonian Institution. CONTENTS PageIntroduction viiOrder Passeriformes 1Family Prunellidae: Accentors 1Prunella montanella : Mountain accentor 1Habits 1Distribution 3Family Motacillidae : Wagtails and pipits 3Motacilla alba alba: White wagtail 3Habits 3Distribution 11Motacilla alba ocularis: Swinhoe's wagtail 12Habits 12Distribution 16Motacilla alba lugens: Black-backed wagtail 16Habits 16Distribution 18Motacilla flava alascensis : Alaska yellow wagtail 19Habits 19Distribution 24Anthus spinoletta rubescens : American pipit 25Habits 25Distribution 35Anthus spinoletta japonicus : Japanese pipit 38Habits 38Distribution 40Anthus pratensis: Meadow pipit 40Habits 40Distribution 47Anthus cervinus: Red-throated pipit 48Habits 48Distribution 52Anthus spraguei: Sprague's pipit 52Habits 52Distribution 61Family Bombycillidae: Waxwings 62Bombycilla garrulus pallidiceps: Bohemian waxwing 62Habits 62Distribution 77Bombycilla cedrorum: Cedar waxwing 79Habits 79Distribution 99Family Ptilogonatidae: Silky flycatchers 102Phainopepla nitens lepida: Phainopepla 102Habits 102Distribution 113 IV BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM PageFamily Laniidae: Shrikes 114Lanius borealis borealis: Northern shrike 114Habits 114Distribution 126Lanius borealis invictus: Northwestern shrike 128Habits 128Lanius ludovicianus ludovicianus: Loggerhead shrike 131Habits 131Distribution 146Lanius ludovicianus migrans: Migrant shrike 148Habits 148Lanius ludovicianus excubitorides: White-rumped shrike 155Habits 155Lanius ludovicianus gambeli: California shrike 157Habits 157Lanius ludovicianus nelsoni : Nelson's shrike 179Habits 179Lanius ludovicianus anthonyi: Island shrike 180Habits 180Family Sturnidae: Starlings 182Sturnus vulgaris vulgaris: Starling 182Habits 182Distribution 211Aethiopsar cristatellus cristatellus: Crested mynah 215Habits 215Distribution 221Family Vireonidae: Vireos 222Vireo atricapillus: Black-capped vireo 222Habits 222Distribution 226Vireo griseus griseus : White-eyed vireo 227Habits 227Distribution 235Vireo griseus m.aynardi: Key West vireo 237Habits 237Vireo griseus bermudianus : Bermuda vireo 239Habits 239Vireo griseus micrus: Rio Grande vireo 240Habits 240Vireo huttoni huttoni : Hutton's vireo 242Habits 242Distribution 248Vireo huttoni stephensi : Stephens's vireo 249Habits 249Vireo huttoni cognatus: Frazar's vireo 252Habits 252Vireo belli belli: Bell's vireo 253Habits 253Distribution 261Vireo belli niedius: Texas vireo 263Habits 263Vireo belli arizonae: Arizona vireo 263Habits 263 CONTENTS VFamily Vireonidae?Continued PasoVireo belli pusillus: Least vireo 265Habits 265Vireo vicinior: Gray vireo 268Habits 26SDistribution 276Vireo flavifrons : Yellow-throated vireo 276Habits 276Distribution 288Vireo solitarius solitarius : Blue-headed vireo 290Habits 290Distribution 302Vireo solitarius alticola : Mountain vireo 305Habits 305Vireo solitarius plumbeus : Plumbeous vireo 309Habits 309Vireo solitarious cassini 312Habits 312Vireo solitarius lucasanus: Sau Lucas vireo 315Habits 315Vireo calidris barbatulus: Black-whiskered vireo 316Habits 316Distribution 321Vireo flavoviridis flavoviridis: Yellow-green vireo 321Habits 321Distribution 334Vireo olivaceus: Red-eyed vireo 335Habits 335Distribution 346Vireo philadelphicus : Philadelphia vireo 348Habits 348Distribution 360Vireo gilvus gilvus: Eastern warbling vireo 362Habits 362Distribution 370Vireo gilvus swainsoni : Western warbling vireo 373Habits 373Coereba bahamensis : Bahama honeycreeper 379Habits 379Distribution 382Literature cited 383Index 401 INTRODUCTIONThis is the eighteenth in a series of bulletins of the United StatesNational Museum on the life histories of North American birds.Previous numbers have been issued as follows : 107, Life Histories of North American Diving Birds, Augnst 1, 1919.113. Life Histories of North American Gulls and Terns, August 27, 1921.121. Life Histories of North American Fetrels and Pelicans and Their Allies,October 19, 1922.126. Life Histories of North American Wild Fowl (part), May 25, 1923.130. Life Histories of North American Wild Fowl (part), June 27, 1925.135. Life Histories of North American Marsh Birds, March 11, 1927.142. Life Histories of North American Shore Birds (pt. 1), December 31, 1927.146. Life Histories of North American Shore Birds (pt. 2), March 24, 1929.102. Life Histories of North American Gallinaceous Birds, May 25, 1932.167. Life Histories of North American Birds of Prey (pt. 1), May 3, 1937.170. Life Histories of North American Birds of Prey (pt. 2), August 8, 1938.174. Life Histories of North American Woodpeckers, May 23. 1939.176. Life Histories of North American Cuckoos, Goatsuckers, Hummingbirds, andTheir Allies, July 20, 1940.179. Life Histories of North American Flycatchers, Larks, Swallows, and TheirAllies, May 8, 1942.191. Life Histories of North American Jays, Crows, and Titmice, January 27,1947.195. Life Histories of North American Nuthatches, Wrens, Thrashers, and TheirAllies. July 7, 1948.196. Life Histories of North American Thrushes, Kinglets, and Their Allies,June 28, 1949.The same general plan has been followed and the same sources ofinformation have been utilized as in previous bulletins, to wdiich thereader is referred. As this and the previous bulletin were preparedsimultaneously and were originally intended to be published as onebulletin, the list of contributors is the same for both volumes and neednot be repeated here.Eighteen complete life histories were contributed especially for thisvolimie; eight were w^ritten by Bernard W. Tucker and five by Dr.Winsor M. Tyler; Dr. Alden H. Miller, Wendell Taber, Alexander F.Skutch, Alexander Sprunt, Jr., and Eobert S. Woods contributed oneeach. The same valued assistance was rendered by Dr. Winsor M.Tyler, in indexing, and by Wm. George F. Harris in preparing theegg data and measurements.The manuscript for this volume was completed in 1943. Contribu-tions received since then will be acknowledged later. Only informa-tion of great importance could be added. The reader is remindedagain that this is a cooperative work ; if he fails to find in these volumesanything that he knows about the birds, he can blame himself fornot having sent the information to ? The Author. LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN WAG-TAILS, SHRIKES, VIREOS, AND THEIR ALLIESORDER PASSERIFORMES (FAMILIES PRUNELLIDAE, MOTACIL-LIDAE, BOMBYCILLIDAE, PTILOGONATIDAE, LANIIDAE, STURNI-DAE, AND VIREONIDAE)By Arthur Cleveland BentTaunton, Mass. Order PASSERIFORMESFamily PRUNELLIDAE : AccentorsPRUNELLA MONTANELLA (Pallas)MOUNTAIN ACCENTORCONTIUBUTED BY BERNARD WiLLIAM TUOKERHABITSThere are two records of this Siberian bird in Alaska, the firstreferring to a specimen taken by C. G. Harrold on Niinivak Island onOctober 3, 1927, and recorded by Swarth (1928). The second is of amale taken at Camp Collier, St. Lawrence Island, on October 13, 193G,and is recorded by Olaus J. Murie (1938). It was obtained by Mrs.Murie in 1937 from an Eskimo, Jimmie Otiyohok, whose wife hadlearned to prepare bird skins and who had recognized this as an unusualvisitor.It is only in the more southern parts of its range that this species,like a number of other Arctic forms, is confined to mountains. Far-ther north, as Seebohm (1901) has pointed out, it is essentially a birdof the Arctic willow swamps. Dybowski (in Taczanowski, 1872)states that in southeast Siberia, though it is tolerably common inspring, only a few remain to breed in the more elevated portions of themountains. He met with old birds in company with fledged young inthe forests of cedar mingled with firs at the foot of the ChamardabanMountains at the south end of Lake Baikal. More recently Stegmann1 2 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM(1936), writing of the Baikal Mountains, has described the speciesas mainly characteristic of the subalpine scrub zone and mentionsmeeting with it in two places in scrub of Pinus pumila. He statesthat the birds were shy and secretive.Nesting.?Popham (1897), who found six nests in the forests of theYenisei Valley at Yeniseisk, states that these were "sometimes placedas high as eight feet from the gi'ound in the fork of a willow, and atothers quite low down in the stump of a dead tree, and composed ofsmall twigs and dry grass lined with moss and a few hairs." Farthernorth on the Yenisei, Seebohm (1879) found the species mainly fre-quenting the willow scrub near the banks of the river and took a nestin latitude 70i^?, which was built within a foot of the ground.Eggs.?The eggs are a uniform, rather deep blue and are doubtfullydistinguishable from those of the European hedge-sparrow {PrunellaTTwdularis) , though they are said to tend to be rather paler and smaller.The clutch is 4-G. Jourdain (in Hartert, 1910) gives the measure-ments of 31 eggs as : average, 18.55 by 13.75 ; maximum, 20.6 by 14.2and 19.1 by 14.4 ; minimum, 17 by 13.2 and 17.2 by 12.6 millimeters.Young.?No details are recorded.Plumages.?The plumages are described in Hartert's great work, "Die Vogel der palaarktischen Fauna" (1910). The juvenal plumageis like the adult's, but with colors paler and with flecks of brown onthe throat and breast.Food.?The food consists of insects and other small invertebrates,together with small seeds in summer and almost exclusively in winter.Exact data seem to be almost entirely lacking, but seeds of Amaranthusare recorded.Behavior.?A quiet unobtrusive bird described as very much likeits better-known relative the European hedge-sparrow in habits. Likethat species it is inclined to skulk in low cover, though, at any ratein the breeding season, it will also perch in and sing from tall trees,when these are present. Seebolmi seldom saw it on the wing, but inautumn Miss Haviland (1915) found that birds which were met withflitting about the bushes of the Yenisei Delta frequently took wingand flew a short distance with a jerky, pipitlike flight.Voice.?^The note is a shrill triple call rendered by Seebohm (1901)as til-il-il and described by him as titlike. It has a short unpretentiousbut not unpleasing song, which both Seebohm and Popham (1897)describe as resembling that of the European hedge-sparrow, whichis a short, high-pitched warbling strain. It may be delivered eitherfrom low cover or, within the limits of forest growth, from well upin a tree, and is at any rate of sufficient merit for the species to bekept as a cage bird by the Chinese.Field marks.?No field characters have been recorded as such, butit is a small bird of somewhat warblerlike, though fairly robust, build WHITE WAGTAIL 3and proportions, with black-streaked brown back, conspicuous blackcrown and sides of head, separated by a broad pale yellow superciliarystripe, and pale yellow underparts. The striking head pattern andyellow underparts should make it easy to be recognized. Length about6 inches.Fall and winter.?David and Oustalet (1877) state that in Chinaat the beginning of the winter cold it settles in gardens and brushwood-covered places, and La Touche (1925), quoting the experience of theBailey Willis Expedition in 1903-4, states that in the Chili-ShansiMountains in winter "singly or in pairs they are met in almost everygulch, flitting in and out among the boulders and rugged ledges alongthe brooks." DISTEIBUTIONSummer range.?Siberia from the Urals to Bering Sea, north toabout 70? in the Yenisei Valley, south to the Altai, Sayansk, Baikal,and Stanovoi Mountains.Winter range.?North China and Korea. Occasional in the UralMountains and stated to occur on passage in the Crimea.Casual records.?Italy, Austria.Family MOTACILLIDAE : Wagtails and PipitsMOTACILLA ALBA ALBA LinnaeusWHITE WAGTAILContributed by Beknard William TuckerHABITSThe white wagtail is an irregular, but apparently not really veryrare, visitor to east Greenland, where it has even bred occasionally,and it has been recorded once on the west coast. Winge in his "Gr0n-lands Fugle" (1898) was able to quote three records, which include thestill unique one for the west coast just mentioned. This refers to afemale from Godthaab sent by Holb0ll to the Copenhagen Museum in1849. The other two refer to Angmagsalik, and it is from this locality,the site of the only considerable settlement on the east coast, that in-formation as to the status of the white wagtail in Greenland is chieflyderived. This is due in the main to the careful records of Johan Peter-sen, the colony superintendent from 1894 to 1915, which are dealt withby Helms in his account of "The Birds of Angmagsalik" (1926).Petersen first observed a white wagtail at Angmagsalik in the springof 1895, and this constitutes one of the records quoted by Winge. "In1899 it was seen every day during nesting time in July-August, andon August 21st Petersen saw a young bird. It appeared for the last 4 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMtime on August 31st." He observed another on June 12, 1900, andone was shot on June 10, 1915. On May 15, 1900, he was also informedby a Greenlander from Sermilik, in the same district, that three hadbeen seen there about two days previously. It may be added that AlvinPedersen (1930) was informed by Greenlanders that the white wagtailwas often met with at Angmagsalik. F. S. Chapman (1932), orni-thologist on the British Arctic Air Route Expedition, records a nestwith six eggs at Angmagsalik on June 16, 1931. He also records oneidentified near the expedition's base, west of Sermilik Fjord in theAngmagsalik district, on May 10 of the same year and two on May 16,but none were seen there after May 17. Chapman remarks that thewhite wagtail and several other species which breed in Iceland, only afew hundred miles distant, "all appeared for a few days and thenvanished, as if they had overshot their destination."Alvin Pedersen (1926 and 1930) records white wagtails from theScoresby Sound district, considerably farther north. One was shotat Cape Stewart on August 24, 1924, and on June 3, 1925, he saw one atCape Hope and a little later three at a puddle of thaw water. Menworking at Cape Hope knew the birds well ; they had been seen dailyfor some days and there were thought to be two pairs. They were notseen, however, after June 9. Another was believed to have been seenand heard at Elvdal on August 15. In his 1930 paper Pedersen recordsthat in 1923 in the second half of March young wagtails were seen intwo places. "One can therefore conclude with certainty that the specieshas bred at Scoresby Sound." Unfortunately, Pedersen's statementis rather ambiguous. It seems obvious that young birds could not havebeen hatched in Arctic Greenland in March, which seems extraordi-narily early for any small birds except snow buntings to be present atall. If birds young in the sense of being in their first spring are meant,then it may be observed in the first place that it seems unlikely thatthey could have been recognized as such without shooting and secondlythat they would only afford evidence of breeding if they were known tohave wintered in the country. Of this there is, of course, no evidencewhatever and in such a latitude it appears almost, if not quite, impos-sible. The import of Pedersen's statement is thus obscure, and it is apity he was not more explicit. It seems logical to suppose that hisbirds were early migrants.The above is, to the best of the writer's knowledge, the sum totalof published information with regard to the white wagtail in Green-land, and it has seemed desirable to deal with it fairly fully, as thestatus of this bird in Greenland seems never to have been adequatelydealt with in American literature. The A. O. U. Check-list quotesonly Godhavn (on the west coast) on the authority of a second-handstatement by Prof. Alfred Newton in the "Arctic Manual" (1875)jand ignores the much more numerous records for the east coast, except WHITE WAGTAIL 5for the rather vague statement in a footnote "said to breed on eastcoast (Schi0ler)." The Godhavn record is based on the inclusion ofMotadlla alba in a list of birds obtained at that place in August 1857by Dr. David Wall^er in the Ibis, 1860, p. 166, but this was an error,as Professor Newton himself subsequently showed ( YaiTell's "BritishBirds," ed. 4, vol. 1, 1874, p. 549) , so that the record should be deleted.Apart from its visits to Greenland the white wagtail is entitled toa place on the American list on the ground of an occurrence near FortChimo, northern Ungava, in August 1883. With regard to this LucienM. Turner (1885) wrote that four individuals were seen by Alex.Brown and James Lyall, of the Hudson's Bay Co., on August 29, 1883,at Hunting Bay, 4 miles south of Fort Chimo. He added that theydescribed the birds accurately, stating that they were the two parentsand two young of the year and that he placed the fullest reliance ontheir assertion.The white wagtail, or its British representative, the pied wagtail{M. aXba yarrellii) , is one of the birds which an America,!! ornithologistvisiting Europe is almost sure to see, even if he has little leisure forbird observation, for it is ini!ch associated with buildings and inhab-ited places, though in no way confined to such. About farms andvillages its liking for i!esting in sheds and outbuildi!!gs or in cranniesin walls attracts it into associatio!! with man, a!!d it i!iay be !!iet withevei! in towiis, in the i!!ore residential districts where some gardensand ope!! ground are available. Amo!!g European small birds it isone of the species for which it is !nost difficult to define any clear-cuthabitat or "biotope," and so far as one cai! be defined at all it must bepartly in negative teri!:is. It is found in a variety of more or lessopen country, especially, as already noted, about far!!is, buildii!gs,ai!d cultivatio!!, and preferably, though by no means necessarily, iiearponds, streai!is, or other water. Large closely built-i!p areas, largeuninhabited tracts of moor or marshland and the like, and high ele-vatio!!S in mou!!tains are generally avoided. The sa!ne is true ofclosely wooded country, but here comparatively limited clearings oropei! ground along the banks of rivers and streams will si!ffice toattract it. l!i the high noi-th of Europe it is found mainly nearthe coast, while in Iceland, according to Haiitzsch (1905), it prefersthe lower-lying regions especially near standing or rui!!!i!ig watersand the vicinity of the sea, and displays the sa!!!e attachment to farm-steads, villages, and inhabited places that it does on the !i!ainlandof Europe. It is probable that the relatively frequent records ofits occurrence at Ang!nagsalik are not solely due to the !i!uch moreregular observatioi! there as compared with other parts of the eastcoast of Greenland, but again to this liking for the haunts of i!!ai! ? a liking, it should be added, which, at any rate in the breedii!g season, 6 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMis sufficiently accounted for by the variety of suitable breeding sitesthey afford.The name white wagtail is too firmly established to be altered, butit is a rather absurd misnomer, for the bird has a pied pattern ofgray, white, and black. The name is presumably a translation ofLinnaeus's "Alba" and has probably been the more readily acceptedby English ornithologists because it does serve to express, thoughin an exaggerated form, the main difference between the black-backedBritish race or pied wagtail and the paler, gray-backed continentalbird. In fact, in this case, as in that of the white rhinoceros, it seemsthat it must be understood as meaning "not so black" ! Courtship.?The courtship display of Motacilla alba seems moreelaborate than in most small European passerines. It has been morefully described in the British form or pied wagtail than in the whitewagtail proper, but there is no reason to suppose that the races differin their behavior. The most complete account of the pied wagtail'sdisplay is that of Boase (1926).In the early stages the female is often pursued hither and thitherin a graceful, erratic, dancing flight by one, two, or more males whichendeavor to induce her to pause long enough for them to posturebefore her with the head held high and the bill pointing upward at asharp angle so as to display the glossy black gorget. It is somewhatcurious that according to Boase's observations this display of thethroat patch appears not to occur in the display of paired birds, butonly in the early stages, of courtship in the narrower sense, whenmales are endeavoring to attract a mate. Further observation onthis point is perhaps desirable. In later stages the male frequentlyapproaches the female in a zigzag course, posturing at the same time.Boase describes two variations of this performance. In one the headwas moved with a jerky bowing action, a quick flutter of the wingsaccompanying each return to the normal position. In the other thebird had the head depressed and carried the wing nearest the femaleexpanded, at the same time expanding and depressing the tail andtwisting it over to the same side so as to display as much as possible ofits upper surface. Displays of this general type, with variations,are not uncommon.Again, as described by Boase, the male may approach the femalewith wings drooping and tail spread and depressed, head held low,and the feathers of the rump raised, in a manner recalling a displayposture of the European blackbird. Boase does not mention coition asfollowing such displays, but the one just described, at any rate, is atypical preliminary to the sexual act. He does, however, describe inthis connection another more striking form of posturing in which themale sj^reads and erects the tail vertically, with bill inclined upward WHITE WAGTAIL 7and wings drooping or slight!}^ spread or sometimes fluttered. Thefemale may or may not respond but, according to Boase, is "generallyinattentive, finding interest in a passing fly or in preening, and thewhole business may end in a wild pursuit." He records one case,however, where a female joined in a display. He states that he "givesthe particulars as they were noted at the time, in spite of the appear-ance of an error in judging the sexes." "The bird taken to be themale was facing the other when first seen and was bowing rapidly.In the raised position the neck was extended to its limit and the billwas held normally ; in the lower position, the neck was retracted, thehead being level with the back and the bill slightly uptilted. Theother bird, judged to be the female, so far as the plumage gave indica-tion, crept or shuffled with wings and tail moderately expanded andhead depressed around the male, which turned so as to face her."In connection with coition the female is usually passive, merelyquivering the wings and raising the tail if responsive or, if not, some-times actually dashing at and pecking the male.The above are some of the main types of behavior, but there is agood deal of variation, the displays of wagtails, like those of a goodmany other small passerines, being by no means stereotyped. TheKev. E. Peake (1926) describes a case, observed on April 29, thus:"The cock approached from ten feet or so away, bobbing his headstraight up and down with body flattened out. Then, when he gotnear, he danced round with wings curved and expanded, and his tailalso expanded and drooping, and singing all the time. The hen withtail raised and head lowered stood snapping her bill."Other minor variations could be added, but the foregoing will suffice.The reader may perhaps be reminded that these observations referentirely to the British race, since detailed observations on the whitewagtail proper of continental Europe are almost entirely lacking.It so happens that the only two brief observations available differslightly from any recorded for the pied wagtail, but the not incon-siderable variation in the latter race has already been mentioned, andit is most unlikely that there is any real or constant difference in thedisplay behavior of the two forms. One of the two observationsreferred to was, it must be noted, made on captive birds. W. E.Teschemaker (1913) in an account of white wagtails which nested inan aviary writes : "The display is very characteristic and interesting. The femalecrouches on the ground with quivering wings and tail, and beak raised.The male standing sideways to her grovels on the ground, trailing hisdrooping wings ; he then throws himself on that side which is farthestfrom the hen, the wing on this (the farthest) side drooped and quiv-ering, the other wing raised perpendicularly and also quivering."In the "Handbook of British Birds" the Eev. F. C. K. Jourdain 8 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM(1938, vol. 1) has a note on a pair of white wagtails he saw in Kumaniafacing one another with the tails of both birds almost perpendicularlyerected and appearing quite rigid, but unfortunately this somewhatfragmentary observation was all that he could make, as he was passingby in a boat.Nesting.?^Where the white wagtail is a summer migrant the malesusually arrive in advance of the females. In Helgoland males have . been passing for about three weeks before females begin to appear.The nest is generally built in a recess or cavity of some sort or at leastin a more or less concealed position. It may be found in holes in wallsand other masonry or in rocks or cliffs, in steep banks, inside sheds oroutbuildings, under bridges, in hollow trees or among the roots oftrees, in wood stacks, among ivy, and so forth. Commonly it is wellabove ground level, from a couple of feet or so to perhaps 9 or 10 feet,but it may be merely under a clod in a plowed field or among marramgrass on sand dunes. Occasionally it is built in the nest of some otherbird, such as a song thrush, blackbird, or fieldfare. The bulk variesa good deal according to the situation. It is made of dry grass, straws,roots, fine twigs, dead leaves, and moss with cup lined with hair,feathers, or bits of wool. It is built by the female only, with thecock accompanying her. It is evident that the female is also mainlyconcerned in the actual selection of the site, but C. and D. Nethersole-Thompson (1943) state that the male of the pied wagtail also examinespossible sites and may "suggest" sites to the female, whicli she thor-oughly tests.Eggs.?The ground color of the eggs is a slightly grayish or bluishwhite, closely freckled with gray or brownish, Avith underlying pale-gray markings often more or less distinct and sometimes with a fewhairlike dark-brown streaks. White eggs occur and an erythristicvariety has been recorded once. Jourdain ( 1938, vol, 1 ) gives the num-ber as four or five to seven as a rule, rarely eight, and he gives thefollowing measurement of 100 eggs : Average, 20.4 by 15.1 ; maximum,21.5 by 15 and 20 by 16.2; minimum 18 by 15 millimeters. The breed-ing season is given by the same authority as from the end of April toearly in July, exceptionally later in central Europe, but in Iceland andnorth Europe often not before June. Eggs may sometimes be foundin Iceland by the end of May. It may be recalled that the nest inGreenland recorded by Chapman and already mentioned containedegg-s on June 16, but is not known when they were laid.Young.?Incubation is performed chiefly by the female, though ac-cording to Jourdain the male may take some share. The incubationperiod is 12-14 days. Teschemaker (1913) observed that eggshellswere carried away from the nest by birds in captivity.Both parents feed the young. In the case of the pied wagtail thefeces of the nestlings are carried away by the parents, at least in the WHITE WAGTAIL 9later stages (Blair and Tucker, 1941) , and it is safe to assume that thisis true also of the present race. The fledging period is 14-15 days.Plumages.?The plumages are fully described by H. F. Witherbyin the "Handbook of British Birds" ( 1938, vol. 1 ) . The nestling ( de-scribed under the pied wagtail, M. a. yarreUii, and doubtless not differ-ing in the present race) has smoke-gray down distributed on the innerand outer supraorbital, occipital, humeral, ulnar, spinal, femoral,crural, and ventral tracts, but very scanty on the last two. The mouthis orange-yellow inside, with no spots, and externally the flanges arevery pale yellow.In the Juvenal plumage the upperparts are brownish gray, loresand ear coverts dingy, huffish white, breast band dark, smoky brown,rest of breast and flanks huffish gray, throat and belly dull white witha yellowish tinge, wings and tail much as in adult. In the first winterthe male is like the adult female, except for having usually rather moreblack on crown, and the female is also like the adult of that sex butdoes not show any white on forehead or black on crown as the adultmay do. Tlie gray crown has also usually an olivaceous tinge.Food.?The food consists mainly of insects, principally Diptera, butJourdain (1938, vol. 1) mentions also Neuroptera, Trichoptera,Ephemeroptera, etc., as well as small snails.Behavior.?Several of the chief features of behavior are mentionedlater under "Field marks." The incessant up-and-down tail motionis one of the bird's most noticeable characteristics. Though largelyterrestrial, wagtails perch readily on buildings, fences, and so forth,and somewhat less freely on trees. The mainly insect food is securedchiefly on the ground or in shallow water or in little aerial excursionsafter flies or gnats. The birds are much attached to the neighborhoodof water and may often be seen wading in the shallows of pond, lake,or stream. This association is, however, by no means obligatory, andthey may be regularly met with far from water. Farmyards are apopular resort, and the birds will follow the plow in the fields, search-ing for small worms and burrowing larvae. In the high north theyhave naturally less opportunity of benefiting by agriculture and cul-tivation as an extra source of food supply. In Arctic Norway they aremainly coastal birds and may often be seen, as indeed they may be inthe other parts of their range, foraging for flies and other arthropodsamong the debris about high-water mark on the seashore.Voice.?The principal note, used both in flight and when settled,but especially in flight, is a rather shrill tschizzih. There is also arather more musical tzi-wirrp (the m' to be pronounced as in chirrup)with variants, and the alarm note of breeding birds is an incisive chick.The song is a simple, but lively, warbling twitter, consisting largelyof slurred repetitions of call notes with variants and modulations. Itis delivered on the wing or from a perch or while the bird is running843290?50 2 10 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMabout on the ground and is quite often heard from birds on passage^Indeed, it has very little if any sexual or territorial significance, andone of the major functions served by the song of most birds, that ofadvertisement to possible mates in spring, seems here to be dischargedby the tschizzik note, which is uttered persistently from such pointsof vantage as roofs, walls, or rocks.Field marks.?The white wagtail and the other races of Motacillaalba are very easily recognized, though the separation of the racesmay be difficult or in some plumages impossible in the field. They aresmall, slim, long-tailed birds (total length about 7 inches), with a piedpattern of gray, white, and black, spending much of their time on theground, where they walk and run actively, constantly moving the tailup and dow]i in a very characteristic manner, and the head back-ward and forward. The flight is equally characteristic, strongly un-dulating, in a succession of long curves with the wings closed at briefintervals for perceptibly longer than in the case of most small passer-ines of similar size. The note tschizzik, which is freely used in flight,is also distinctive.In the white wagtail the mantle and rump are clear pale gray,nape and hind part of crown black, forehead, front of crown, sides offace, and belly white. In summer the whole throat and breast areblack, but in winter plumage the throat is white bounded by a horse-shoe-shaped black bib. The wings and tail are blackish, withdouble white wing bar and white outer tail feathers. In the femalethe gray is rather duller than in the male, and young birds in theJuvenal plumage are altogether duller and more uniformly grayishwithout the strong blacks and whites, as described under "Plumages."Differences from M. a. ocularis and M. a. lugens, the other two races onthe American list, are mentioned in the accounts of those forms.Enemies.?The white wagtail falls a victim at times to various hawks,and in the northern regions the merlin (pigeon hawk) is evidently itschief avian enemy. Greaves (1941) mentions (European) sparrowhawks and peregrine falcons attacking birds at roosts in Egypt. Four-footed marauders, such as rats and weasels, sometimes take toll of thenestlings, and owing to the association with human habitations whichhas already been stressed the domestic cat must be accounted an im-portant enemy. Hantzsch (1905) particularly mentions prowling catsas special enemies about the farms and settlements of Iceland. Incontinental Europe the cuckoo frequently lays its eggs in nests of thewhite wagtail, and as this means that the wagtails can rear no broodof their own, since the rightful young ones are ejected from the nestby the young cuckoo, the cuckoo must be included in the list of enemies.A list of invertebrate parasites is given by Niethammer (1937) , andthe same author states that not a few nestlings appear to succumb to theattacks of the larvae of the fly Protocalliphora caerulea. WHITE WAGTAIL 11Fall and winter.?The white wagtail is a migrant in the northernparts of its range, and in fall there is a southward movement to theMediterranean region and Africa. In the British Isles there is a reg-ular passage down the west coast of Great Britain and both east andwest coasts of Ireland, consisting, no doubt, mainly of birds from Ice-land. It has been shown in Germany (e. g., in Helgoland) that the firstarrivals are young birds. Later old and young pass together(Weigold, 1926). In winter quarters, according to most observers, itseems generally to frequent the vicinity of water and may be foundeither singly or in small j^arties or in flocks, which may reach very largedimensions. It may, however, also be found well away from water.It is at roosting time that gregarious tendencies are most pronounced,for in regions where many winter, as in Egypt, hundreds and sometimeseven thousands will assemble to roost together, and similar gregariousroosting takes place during migration. Reed beds and areas of tangledswamp vegetation are the sites most favored, but buildings and trees(sometimes even in towns), bushes, ivy on walls, and other sites arealso made use of. Greaves (1941) has given an interesting account ofroosting habits in Egjq^t, where enormous numbers roost in sugarcaneby the Nile. He says : "The birds circle round and up and down, con-stantly changing directions and calling. It was not clear whether thosealready down called, but it seemed obvious that the leaders of theflocks were trying to find out the places where others were alreadyroosting, and when the leaders went down the majority followed atonce or after making another short flight. Generally, they droppedlike stones, with closed wings, until just above the cane, sometimes froma height of forty feet or more. It was exceedingly difficult to assessnumbers, but there was no doubt that on favourable occasions a singleobserver might see as many as 2000. Once down they rarely took towing again unless disturbed." This was in January. The same kindof thing can be observed on a much smaller scale in Europe. Greavesfurther states that white wagtails wintering in Egypt "exercised aterritorial habit in feeding, and regularly frequented the same garden.A male would dispute his right with another male but generally toleratea female on his territory, sometimes two, but as observations continuedit seemed clear that the association was a loose one. The female formost of the season was in close attendance on the male, and often fol-lowed him, but at other times fed alone."DISTRIBUTIONBreeding range.?Iceland, Faeroes, and practically all Europe fromthe Arctic Ocean to the Mediterranean and from Portugal to theUrals, but excluding the British Isles, where the form is replaced bythe pied wagtail {M. a. yarrellii). Also Kolguev, Corsica, Asia Mi-nor, and Syria. 12 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUIVIWinter range.?Soutliern Europe and Africa south to Kenya and'Uganda, Belgian Congo (Uele River), Ubangi Shari, Sierra Leone,and Liberia; also Madeira, Palestine, southern Arabia, and Iraq./Spring Tnigration.?Leaves Equatorial Africa in March. Presentin Egypt until early April (late date. May 2) . Passage through Brit-ish Isles mid-March to early in June. Passage of males begins Marchin Helgoland, that of females from April 9. Reaches breeding groundsin Germany and Holland in March-April, southern Finland begin-ning of April, and far north of Europe early in May (first arrivalsrecorded at Vadso, northern Norway, May 4, and at Ust Zylma, north-ern Russia, May 12). Arrives southern coastal districts of Icelandat the end of April and beginning of May (early date, April 15) . Fall migration.?^Leaves Iceland in August and September (re-corded Westmann Islands until October 10). Passage in British Islesmid-August to early in October, in north and central Europe Augustto October. Even as far north as south Finland some are still passingeven in November. Arrives Egypt early October (earliest date,October 7). Reaches Equatorial Africa October.Casual records.?Jan Mayen, Azores.MOTACILLA ALBA OCULARIS SwinhoeSWINHOE'S WAGTAILHABITSThis is a northern Siberian race of the common white wagtail ofEurope, from which it diJffers in having a black or dusty streak throughthe eye and having much more white on the wing coverts.Its known breeding range in nortJiern Siberia seems to extend fromthe Yenisei and Lena Rivers eastward to Plover Bay on the ChukotskiPeninsula, the nearest point to Alaska, and southward in the interiorto Lake Baikal. It is an extremely rare bird in Alaska, and some ofthe published sight records are open to doubt. Dr. E, W. Nelson ( 1 887 ) writes : "Although this bird has been taken repeatedly at Plover Bay,Siberia, and thence throughout a large portion of Northeastern Asia,including China and Formosa, to the Lake Baikal region, it appears tobe almost unknown in Alaska. In fact its claim as a bird of the Terri-tory rests upon the capture of a single specimen, a young bird in sum-mer plumage, by Captain Kellett and Lieutenant Wood in 'NorthwestAmerica', as recorded in the Brit. Mus. Cat. Birds, X, 473." The 1931Qieck-list gives two Alaska records, Attu Island and mouth of theYukon, both sight records. The former is based on the following-statement by Lucien M. Turner (1886) :I was looking out of my window on the morning of May 14, 1881, watching thevessel, which was to take me to Unalashka Island, enter the harbor. I saw a bird SWINHOE'S WAGTAIL 13just beneath the window and on the ground, not more than seven feet from myeyes. At the first glance I supposed the bird to be Fleetrophanax nivalis. A mo-ment sufficed to convince me that it was not. I ran to get my gun ; and, as Iopened the door, of the entry-way, to get out, the door opened directly on thebird, which, with a chirp precisely like that of Budytes flavus leucostriatus, flewoff to a distance of 75 yards and alighted. I approached as nearly as I daredand fired at it, but failed to obtain it, as the gun was loaded with No. 3 shot.It flew off beyond the hills and was not seen again.This may, of course, have been ocularis, but it seems much more likelythat it was lugens, which is common on the nearby Commander Islands.The record for the mouth of the Yukon is based on the followingstatement by Dr. Louis B. Bishop (1900) : "On the morning of August28 the Robert Kerr, on which I was a passenger, was hindered fromproceeding by a gale and low water on the bar, and Avas made fast tothe bank at the Aphoon mouth of the Yukon. As I came on deck I sawhalf a dozen white wagtails fly about the vessel and settle in the grassclose by. AVliile I returned for my gun they left, but a thorough ac-quaintance with MotaciUa alba in Egypt, where it is abundant duringthe winter, leaves me no doubt that these birds were wagtails." Theseprohabhj were Swinhoe's wagtails, but no specimens were taken.The most remarkable American record, which is supported by aspecimen and so not open to question, is Lyman Belding's (1883)Lower California record ; he reports "a single specimen shot January 9,1882, during a cold gale from the north. It was found on a drift ofsea-weed on the beach." His specimen was an adult in winter plumageand was taken at La Paz, near the southern extremity of the peninsula.It seems hardly likely that this wandering waif could have crossed thebroad expanse of the Pacific Ocean, unless it had been transported onsome ship from southern Asia. It may, of course, have wanderedacross Bering Strait and then followed the Pacific coastline southward,but it is strange that no other specimen has ever been taken or seenanywhere along this coast south of Alaska.F. Seymour Hersey (1916), who made two trips to northern Alaskato gather material for this work, published the following report onhis experience with Swinhoe's wagtail : "Although this bird has beenconsidered merely a straggler to Alaska, there are reasons for believingthat the species is slowly extending its range and becoming establishedon our coast. During the northern cruise a number of individualswere seen between Kotzebue Sound and Cape Lisburne."At Chamisso Island, on August 1, a pair of birds were carrying foodinto a crevice in the rocks at an inaccessible point on the clifi". One ortwo were also seen at other points, and at Cape Lisburne I succeeded inshooting a bird which, unfortunately, fell on the farther side of a creekwhere it could not be found."Alfred M. Bailey ( 1926) , who spent parts of two seasons in northern 14 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMAlaska, says of this wagtail: "Only one specimen was seen on the-Alaska side and that at Wales on June 23. While travelling down thecoast by dog sled I found a mud nest in an abandoned igloo. Thenative with me told me it was the nest of a little bird 'all same snow-bird, little longer'. It was similar to the nest which I found in thecliff along Providence Bay, but I was unable to carry it with me forpossible identification."N. G. Buxton (J. A. Allen, 1905) found Swinhoe's wagtail abundantaround Gichiga and Marcova, in northeastern Siberia, where 17 speci-mens were collected ; he says in his notes : "Tlie first birds arrive themiddle of May, but they do not become common before June 1. Beforeand after the nesting time they are seen in twos and threes about thehouses and along the river banks and seacoast, but they never collect inflocks like the Yellow Wagtails, and are seldom seen far back on thetundra. They nest in the crevices in the banks of the streams andalong the seacoast and on the ground in the grassy places along thestreams. They are good songsters, singing especially while on thewing. They begin to depart the latter part of August and are seldomseen after the middle of September."Migration.?Swinhoe's wagtail is evidently a common migrantthrough China. Tsen-Hwang Shaw (1936) records it as passingthrough Hopei Province in April and again in September and thefirst part of October. "A few of these birds winter in some warmplaces within the territory of Hopei province." Vaughan and Jones(1913) write:The Streak-eyed Wagtail is an exceedingly common bird of passage at HongKong, Macao, and on the Kwang Tung coast generally. Although appearing asearly as August 9 on migration, the latter part of September or early October isthe more usual time for their advent, when immense numbers may be seen on thecricket-ground and in the Naval dockyard and elsewhere on the island ofHong Kong. The birds on their passage usually roost in the trees, and as many asfifty were observed to crowd themselves, with much bickering, into a small treein the Naval dockyard. They leave again on the spring migration in April, andprobably only breed in the far north of Asia ; they do not occur inland, so thattheir migration is along the coast-line.Johan Koren, collecting for Thayer and Bangs (1914) , reported that "Swinhoe's wagtail arrived at Nijni Kolymsk, on May 15, 1912, and inthe autumn of 1911 was observed as late as Sept. 21."Nesting.?Aside from the probable nests mentioned by Messrs.Hersey and Bailey, no nest seems to have been found in Alaska, butseveral have been found in Siberia. Thayer and Bangs (1914) saythat "a nest with a set of six eggs was taken at Nijni Kolymsk, June11, 1912. It was built under the roof of a log cabin in the village."Mr. Bailey (1926) writes: "A nest was found July 5 with fivebadly incubated eggs, in a little crevice in a crumbling rock cliff SWINHOE'S WAGTAIL 15facing Providence Bay, about twenty feet from the ground. Thenest was of grasses, plastered together with mud and lined with a fewfeathers, as in a robin's nest. It was fastened rather firmly into thenesting cranny. Unfortunately, I fell with the nest, breaking theeggs. The parent birds hovered overhead all the time I was attempt-ing to climb the rotten walls, one of them having flushed from thenest when I first discovered it."Theodore Pleske (1928) mentions a nest and six eggs of Swinhoe'swagtail, taken on June 19, 1902, at the mouth of the Elijdep River, ofwhich he says: "The nest is large, solidly built and thick-walled;it is made of dry grass blades of the preceding year interwoven withtwigs, sometimes fairly thick, of a small shrub, probably Betulanana, and tufts of moss or lichen. The inner layer of the nest isformed of finer grass so arranged that the material becomes finer andfiner toward the lining. The cavity itself is abundantly furnishedwith hair of the wild reindeer very skilfully selected from the finesttufts and in addition a feather of the Snowy Owl {Nyctea nyctea).''''A set of five eggs in the Wilson C. Hanna collection was taken nearLake Baikal on May 80, 1898, from a nest situated on the ground,composed of roots and moss and lined with fur.Eggs.?Five or six eggs generally constitute the full set for theSwinhoe's wagtail. Mr, Pleske (1928) describes the eggs referredto above as follows: "The eggs have a white ground color coveredwith small spots of a drab brown (Ridgway, PI. 46, drab) uniformlydisposed over the surface and forming a wreath at the large end anda small number of black lines on the large ends of some of the eggs."Mr. Hanna describes his eggs as ovate in shape, slightly glossywhite, and thickly marked, more heavily on the large ends, with finemarkings of "buffy brown," "buffy olive," and "light brownish olive."The measurements of 26 eggs average 20.1 by 15.0 millimeters; theeggs showing the 4 extremes measure 22.0 by 15.8, 17.3 by 14.5, and 19.9by 14.1 millimeters.Plumages.?As Swinhoe's wagtail is considered to be only a sub-species of the common white wagtail, its molts and plumages probablyfollow the same sequence, as fully described in Witherby's Hand-book (1919).In Nelson's "The Birds of Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean" (1883) , facing page 63, there is a fine colored plate of an adult male in fullspring plumage, which shows the characters of the subspecies veryclearly. And in Turner's "Contributions to the Natural History ofAlaska" (1886), facing page 178, there is a good colored plate of theadult and young in winter.La Touche (1930) says of the immature plumages: "Young birdsare entirely dull grey on the upper parts, the forehead grey of a 16 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMlighter tint, a white eyebrow and a blackish trans-ocular stripe; the-sides of the head are mottled with grey, the throat feathers are edgedwith black and the breast has a blackish crescent-shaped patch. Theface and throat are generally suffused with yellow. After the autumnmoult the young bird has the forehead and the forecrown white, butthe hind crown is grey like the rest of the upper parts. The blackbegins to appear on the head during the first winter."Food.?Mr. Shaw (1936) says: "This bird, like several other wag-tails, is insectivorous. Its food consists of spiders, beetles, and someother insects and their larvae."Behamor.?Mr. Hersey writes (1916) : "My failure to secure speci-mens was due to the excessively restless habits of the birds. When onthe ground they were largely concealed by intervening clumps of mossand the general character of the tundra, while they were liable to takewing at a moment's notice and usually flew long distances. Theirflight was so erratic that it was exceedingly difficult to shoot them onthe wing." DISTRIBUTIONContributed by Bernard William TuckerData on winter and summer ranges and migrations are summarizedby Paludan (1932), whose paper should be consulted for fullerparticulars.Breeding range.?Northeast Siberia from the Tchuktchi Peninsulawest to the Yenisei (Turukhansk) and south to the StanovoiMountains.Winter range.?South China, Formosa, Hainan, Indochina, Tenas-serim, Burma, Assam, West Bengal, Philippines.Spring migration.?^Leaves winter quarters in April ; last recordednorth Kansu May 8, North Chihli May 10, Amurland May 10; arrivalat Nijni Kolymsk, northeast Siberia, May 15. Recorded Bering Islandfrom May 9.Fall migration.?Recorded Nijni Kolymsk as late at September 21;Chihli, September 15 to October 10; Szechwaii, September-November;Kwangtung, September.MOTACILLA ALBA LUGENS KittlitzBLACK-BACKED WAGTAILContributed by Winsor Marrett TylerHABITSA black-backed wagtail w^as taken on Attic, now called Attn, Islandon May 4, 1913, apparently the first and so far the only record of the BLACK-BACKED WAGTAIL 17 occurrence of the species in North America. John E. Thayer andOutram Bangs (1921) published the record of its capture:During the course of the expedition to the Arctic coasts of East Siberia andNorthern Alaslia in 1913 and 1914, upon which Messrs. Joseph Dixon and W.Spragne Brooks went as zoological collectors, their power schooner, the "PolarBear," put into the harbor at Attic Island, the outermost of the Aleutian chain,in early May, 1913. From the deck of the vessel here several black and whiteWagtails, recognized as Motacilla lugens Kittlitz, wore seen flitting about thebeaches, and on May 4, one adult male was secured.This specimen, now No. 21590 collection of John B. Thayer, is the first, webelieve to be recorded from North America.J. D. D. La Touche (1930) in his handbook of the birds of easternChina gives the range of the black-backed wagtail thus : This fine Wagtail summers in "Karatschatka, Commander Is., Kurile Is.,Askold Is., Hokkaido and N. Hondo (Awomorl), and on the Aleutian Is. [?1,and its extra-Chinese winter range includes South Japan, the Riu Kiu Is., andFormosa." * * * The Kamtschatkan Wagtail is quite common at Swatowduring the winter, but it does not appear to have been noticed by Mell in theinterior of Kwangtuug or by Vaughan and Jones on the West River. At Foochowit is common enough on passage and a fair number may be seen there in winteras well. * * * At Chinkiang I saw a good many, but chiefly in spring. AtShaweishan it was observed from the 8th March to the 8th May, and in October.This Wagtail is found on wet fields, marshy ground, and mud-fiats. I never sawit in the valley of the Min above Foochow, nor in the mountains.Sten Bergman (1935) gives the following account (freely trans-lated from the German) of the black-backed wagtail in Kamchatkaand the Kurile Islands : The form of white wagtail that breeds in Kamchatka is Mofacilla alba lugens.It is very common inland as well as on the seacoast, but commoner on the latter.I met it in all parts of the peninsula that I visited during the summer. The firstacquaintance that I made with it was on Cape Lopatka, where our ship had amishap. Here it was everywhere on the seashore, espt^cially on the eastern side,on the rocky shores, where the white wings of the birds contra.sted with thedark stones. On the coast of the Pacific Ocean I found it breeding in all thecreeks near my camp between Cape Lopatka and Petropawlowsk. Farthernorth on the same coast Malaise found the black-backed wagtail bi-eeding atCape Olga, and I found it myself at Ust Kamchatsk. On the Okhotsk Sea Ifound it in family parties from Cape Lopatka to Bolsheretsk between August20 and September 2. Malaise found it in the fall of 1921 on Kronoki Lake.In the dry woods the black-backed wagtail is naturally absent. It needs waterin order to prosper, and I have never seen one on Kamchatka far from a streamor lake. Its call seems to me identical to that of the white wagtail. Next tothe lark, it is the earliest of the small migrants to arrive in Kamchatka. In1921 I saw the lirst example in Petropawlowsk on April 22, but sometimesthey come even earlier. They generally leave the country at the end of Sep-tember, but some remain even longer, and I saw a wagtail in Petropawlowsk onOctober 22.Motacilla alba lugens builds its nest in many different kinds of places. Thenormal one is on the shore of the sea or a river, on the ground, not far fromwater, but the wagtail is also fond of human society and sometimes builds its 18 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM nest about houses. Building begins in the first half of May. I found a pair onMay 14th that were already busy with their nest under the projection of theroof of a house in Petropawlowsk. In Klutschi I found a nest on the roof of anative hut, another on a balagan (a drying rack for salmon), and a third ona boat drawn up on the shore of a river. The nests are large and firm, and aresimilar to those of the white wagtail. I collected three nests which are now inthe Swedish National Museum. The three are almost entirely lined with animalhair, generally from reindeer. Scarcely a feather occurs in any of the nests.The eggs are laid at the end of May. I found two nests with freshly laid eggson the 30th and 31st of May near Klutschi. The first pair, whose nest was col-lected on the 30th of May, immediately began to build a new one about 20meters from the site of the earlier one in a drawn-up skiff, and had on June 12tha complete nest with five eggs. The building consumed 9 days. The eggs agreeIn color and size with those of the white wagtail.The wagtail, except Hirttndo rustica tytlcri, is the only small bird in Kam-chatka that seeks human companionship, and nests in houses.This form breeds commonly on all the Kurile Islands, according to Yama-shina. The wagtail is the first of all the birds to arrive in the Kuriles in thespring. After the young have flown, the wagtails are found in family groupsalong the seashore.Field marks.?According to Bernard W. Tucker the male in breed-ing plumage differs from M. a. alba and ocularis in having a blackback. He says that it is much like the pied wagtail {M. a. yarreUii)of the British Isles but differs in having the secondaries wholly orlargely white and a black streak through the eye as in ocularis andthat the female and the male in winter have gray backs, or largelygray, and could not be distinguished from ocularis in the field ; indeedmany specimens in the hand appear to him to be separable only withdifficulty.Winter.?The habits are similar to those of other races of M. alba.La Touche (1930) states that in China it is found on wet fields, marshyground, and mud flats. DISTRIBUTIONBreeding range.?Kamchatka, Kurile Islands, Sakhalin, Yezzo,and north Hondo. Westerly limits somewhat uncertain; recordedfrom Askold Island and the Amur ; but "apparently not on the Amur,"according to Hartert and Steinbacher (1938).Winter range.?Southeast China (Lower Yangtse, Fokhien, andKwangtung) , south Japan, Riu-Kiu Islands, and Formosa.Spring migration.?Data on migration are summarized by Paludan(1932) . Noted passing at Shaweishan, off the mouth of the Yangtse,from March 8 to May 8; arrives Kuriles from early March, but saidnot to do so in Kamchatka until April-May.Fall migratio7i.?Gone from Kuriles by end October; recorded atUssuria and Shaweishan in October and Lower Yangtse in November. ALASKA YELLOW WAGTAIL 19MOTACILLA FLAVA ALASCENSIS (Ridgway)ALASKA YELLOW WAGTAILHABITSThis pretty little bird is our American representative of a wide-ranging species of northern Europe and Asia, from Norway andSweden to northeastern Siberia. It is one of the few Asiatic speciesthat have wandered across Bering Strait and become more or lessfirmly established in Alaska, but the yellow wagtail has become morefirmly established than the others and is now really abundant in itslimited range on this continent, from Point Barrow and KotzebueSound to the mouth of the Nushagak River, on the Bering Sea coastof Alaska. It probably breeds also on St. Matthew Island and per-haps on other islands in Bering Sea. On the tundra back of Nome,in July 1911, we were surprised to find the yellow wagtail to be oneof the most characteristic and most conspicuous of the small landbirds of the region. The young were on the wing then and weremuch in evidence everywhere, especially in the willow patches andaround the small ponds on the tundra, but also on the outskirts ofthe town. Except near the town they were quite shy, especiallywhen on the ground, but they were constantly flitting about over us,with their peculiar, buoyant, billow^y flight and continuous twitteringnotes.Dr. Nelson (1887) says that "in the vicinity of Saint Michaels itis one of the most familiar and common land birds, and as one walksover the open tundra its familiar clinking, metallic note strikes pleas-antly on the ear. It usually has a preference for the boggy, moss-grown portions of the country." Dr. Grinnell (1900) found it to be "an abundant summer bird of the coast region of Kotzebue Sound."The first specimen he secured "was flushed from the weedy border ofa dwarf alder thicket near a pond."Our Alaska race of this species was once supposed to be identicalwith the form found in eastern Siberia, M. f. leucostriatus, which isdecidedly duller in coloration than the brightly colored, olive-and-yellow type form that is found in northern Europe. Our bird isnow regarded as distinct from the Siberian race, and is even dullerin coloration; Mr. Ridgway (1904) describes alascensis as similarto M. /. leucostriatus, "but slightly smaller, especially the bill ; colora-tion duller, the yellow of the under parts paler and less pure, thechest more distinctly clouded or blotched with grayish, the olive-green of rump, etc., less pronounced."/Spring.?By just what route the Alaska yellow wagtail reaches itssummer home on the Bering Sea coast of Alaska does not seem to bedefinitely known ; and it never will be known until enough specimens 20 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMhave been collected on migration in eastern Asia to separate our bird^from the form breeding in northeastern Siberia. It probably fol-lows the same route by which the species originally invaded thiscontinent. Dr. Nelson (1883) says that it "makes its appearance thelast of May or the first of June, according to the season." And LucienM. Turner (1886) says: "This bird arrives about the 12th of June;a few days earlier or later, depending on the opening of the spring."Herbert Brandt (1943) writes: "We did not observe this Palaearcticspecies as a transient about Hooper Bay during the migi-ation, andit does not seem likely that such a conspicuous bird could escape ushad it passed through our region in anything like the numbers thatcongregated in the mountains a little farther north. It seems prob-able that this wagtail arrives either from the north or directly acrossBering Sea from its Asiatic winter haunts."Courtship.?Dr. Nelson (1887) writes:When the male pays his addresses to the female in spring a peculiar perform-ance takes place, somewhat like that of the Yellow Chat. The male starts upfrom a bank or clump of bushes, and, rising for 20 or 30 yards at a sharp angle,suddenly stiffens and decurves his wings, at the same time slowly spreading andelevating his tail nearly perpendicularly to his body, and in this curious positionhe floats slowly down until within a foot or two of the ground, uttering a low,clear, and rapid medley of jingling notes which can only be compared to thesound made by lightly rattling together the links of a small steel chain. Thisperformance is very commonly executed over a large snow-bank, as if the birdappreciated the contrast afforded by such a background. As he approaches theground in his descent he suddenly glides away to a neighboring bush or knoll,whence he repeats the maneuver.Nesting.?Dr. Nelson (1887) says:Their nests are usually placed under the edge of a tussock or slightly over-hanging bank, bunch of gi'ass, or in fact of any similar shelter, under which theycan partially or wholly conceal the nest. Their preference, however, is for grassyborders of a rather steeply sloping bank, along the brow of which they place theirnests. As one walks over the grass-covered places frequented by these birds,during the breeding season, he is likely to see a female flutter off her eggs at bisfeet, and, flying away a few yards, alight and glide away, mouse-like, among thegrass with such rapidity that, unless closely watched, she quickly disappears.In some cases she will lie thus concealed for some time, and other times shejoins the male at once and circles about overhead.He says that no two of his seven nests are exactly alike : The outer jwrtlon is usuallj' composed of bits of grass and moss, pretty com-pactly arranged, with the central cavity well lined with some warm material, suchas the hair of dogs and man, or Ptarmigan feathers, or a combination of thethree. One nest is built mainly of fine grass lined with a closely felted layerof dogs' hair. The second nest has a thin layer of moss and grass followed byone of feathers, and the six eggs it contains rest upon a layer of silky-brownclub-mosses. The third is composed of a felted layer of dogs' hair at the bottom,followed by a thin layer of feathers ; this is succeeded by a still thinner layerof club-moss, and the eggs rest upon a felted layer of dogs' hair. The fourthnest is composed of a uniform loosely joined structure of feathers and pieces ofgrass all mingled into a heterogeneous mass. ALASKA YELLOW WAGTAIL 21Wilson C. Hanna has sent me the data for six sets of eggs of theAlaska yellow wagtail that came to him with the parent birds, fivefrom the Meade Kiver, 100 miles southeast of Barrow, and one fromWales, Alaska. Three nests were in the roots of small willows on thebank of the river, one was in long grass on the river bank, one was ona grassy knoll near some willow roots, and the nest at Wales was "sit-uated at mound at old dwelling place." The nests were made mainlyof grasses and fine plant stems, with sometimes a few dead leaves, root-lets, mosses, or feathers. The three nests that he has in his collectionare of "rather compact construction"; one has only the finer materialfor a lining, and another has a good lining of reindeer hair, mouse hair,moss, and a few feathers. The measurements of these nests vary inoutside diameter from 4 to 4.5 inches, in inside diameter from 2 to 2.3,in outside depth from 2.5 to 3, and in inside depth from 1.7 to 1.8inches. Dr. Lawrence H. Walkinshaw (1948) gives a somewhat simi-lar account of the nesting of this species near Bethel, Alaska.^99s.?The Alaska yellow wagtail lays four to seven eggs to a set,five and six being the commonest. Mr. Hanna giA'^es me the follow-ing description of the 17 eggs in his collection : "The eggs are ovateto short-ovate and are without gloss. At first glance they look like someeggs of the horned lark, but smaller in size. The ground color is 'deepolive-buff' to 'dark olive-buff,' The markings are fine and rather uni-form over the entire surface of the eggs, but in at least a few casesheavier on the larger end. The markings are 'light brownish olive'to 'buffy olive',"Dr, Nelson's description ( 1887) is somewhat different ; of a series of37 eggs, he says: "The ground color of the eggs varies from a pale-greenish clay to a clayey white, over which extends a profuse confluentmottling, varying from slaty to reddish brown, which, in some cases,almost hides the ground color; in others the spots are large and lessnumerous, and do not cover the shells so completely. The eggs of thesame set usually are of a similar shade and markings, and in but oneset can the slightest traces of zigzag markings be found about thelarger ends."The measurements of 50 eggs average 19.1 by 14.4 millimeters; theeggs showing the four extremes measure 20.9 by 15.3, 19.5 by 15.6, 18.0by 14.4, and 18.5 by 13.2 millimeters.Yoimg,?Mr. Turner (1886) says that "incubation lasts ten to thir-teen days. The young birds are fed exclusively on insect food. Theyare able to fly in fifteen to eighteen days after hatching. The earliestbirds sometimes hatch two broods of young in a season, as young justable to fly have been observed as late as August 18th." When we wereat Nome, around the middle of July, the young were fully fledged andon the wing; small parties were often seen about the houses on the out- 22 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM skirts of the town and on the beaches, where they evidently found anabundance of food.Plumages.?Ridgway (1904) notes no sexual difference in theJuvenal plumage, which he describes as "above olive-brown, the wingsand tail as in the autumnal plumage; superciliary stripe, malar stripe,and under parts pale yellowish buff, relieved by a conspicuous crescenticpatch on chest of sooty black, connected laterally with a submalar stripeof the same color along each side of the throat; bill, legs, and feetbrownish."The postjuvenal molt takes place between July and September. Thisinvolves some wing coverts and all the contour plumage, but not therest of the wings or the tail. It produces a first-winter plumage, whichis practically like that of the adult. Ridgway (1904) describes theyoung male in this plumage as "above plain olive, more grayish on headand rump ; wings and tail as in adults ; superciliary stripe, chin, andthroat pale straw yellow, the first two paler, nearly white ; rest of underparts pale buffy yellow or yellowish buff, paler (nearly white) on un-der tail-coverts ; chest tinged with brown, and with a distinct crescenticpatch of darker brown ; sides and flanks light grayish brown or olive."He describes the young female as similar, but "chest less strongly tingedwith brown and with only a few spots of darker brown."As with some of the Eurasian races, there is probably quite anextensive prenuptial molt in birds of all ages, which involves all thecontour plumage, most of the wing coverts and the central tail feathers,though we have not the material to show it in our subspecies. Adultshave a complete postnuptial molt, beginning late in July and sometimeslasting through September. There seem to be no winter specimensavailable that are definitely known to belong to this subspecies, but thewinter plumages are probably similar to those of closely allied races,which are fully described in Witherby's Handbook ( 1919) . Food.?Not much is known about the food of the Alaska yellowwagtail, which probably does not differ materially from that of thespecies elsewhere. Witherby's Handbook (1919) says that the foodof the European race consists "almost entirely of insects (coleopteraand larvae, diptera, orthoptera, larvae of lepidoptera, rhynchota, etc.).Saxby records small worms, larvae, aquatic insects, and small univalves,but these are probably exceptional and diptera constitute bulk of food."Dr. Grinnell (1900) saw some of these wagtails feeding on salmon-berries, which grew plentifully near the alder thickets. He says also : "Several came around our tents at Mission Inlet daily for crumbs, andif I kept quiet they would come quite close. A wagtail would approachfrom the nearest grass-patch, sidling along, hopping daintily with ever-changing attitude and canting its head from one side to the other. Atevery step or two the bird would hesitate a moment before again ad-vancing, its tail nervously twitching up and down. If it spied a crumb, ALASKA YELLOW WAGTAIL 23 a quick dart and away the bird would fly to a safer rendezvous. Thewagtails would also snap up lots of flies."Behavior.?On July 13, 1911, I was exploring the tundra back ofNome, Alaska. From the top of a low hill I could see a small pondabout a mile away and walked over to it, where I found three or foursmall ponds with wet meadows and marshy ground about them. Onthe way down over the tundra, as I approached a patch of low willows,I noticed a small bird, which at first I thought was a pipit, flyingback and forth in front of me, going over the same space again andagain until I became tired watching it and waiting for it to alight.It had a peculiar, billowy, fluttering flight, was twittering constantly,and seemed to be tied to one spot just in front of me, swinging backand forth like a pendulum. I soon saw that it was not a pipit, for Icould recognize the bright yellow breast and the conspicuous whitetail feathers of the Alaska yellow wagtail. It was my first experiencewith this lovely little bird, which was really abundant about the willowpatches and around edges of the sw^ampy ponds. The pecidiar be-havior of this individual was probably due to the presence of youngin that particular spot. There were plenty of fully fledged youngon the wing, but there were probably others in the nests, for we sawadults with food in their bills.At low tide these birds, especially the young, resorted to the beachesto pick up bits of food left by the receding waves; here they flittedgracefully among the rocks or walked daintily over the wet ground,nodding their heads and flirting their tails after the manner of pipitsor the other wagtails. They were always shy on the ground but, ifflushed, would come back and circle overhead, where their restless anderratic flight made them diflicult to shoot.Dr. Nelson (1887) writes: "Even during the breeding season theyare ever on the alert, and the approach of a stranger to their hauntsis sure to bring several of them from bush or flat to protest againstthe right-of-way. They may be distinguished, while yet far away, bytheir long, easy, swinging flight, undulating in their course like Spinustrlstls, or a Woodpecker; drawing near, they circle slowly overhead,constantly uttering the sharp ple-ple-ple, or alighting for a momentupon a small bush or hummock, flirting their tails and moving rest-lessly about, apparently consumed with nervous impatience, andscarcely have they touched the ground ere they are again on thewing."Voice.?The courtship flight song is referred to under that heading,and the call note is described above by Dr. Nelson. Dr. Grinnell(1900) referred to the latter note as a faint pe-weet, uttered at fre-quent intervals. These are the notes that I recorded as twitteringnotes ; I never heard any very musical notes, nor anything that couldbe called a song. 24 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMDr. Lawrence H. Walkinshaw (1948) observed that the "song wasusually a high tzee-zee-zee^ or a ter-muee-ter-zwee-zwee-zmee. Theregular rate of singing was about seven times per minute on warmerdays during the morning. The birds sang periodically throughoutthe day, but not continuously."Field marks.?The yellow wagtails can be recognized by their yellowor yellowish breasts, white throats, and dark cheek patches. Other-wise they closely resemble pipits in appearance and behavior.Fall.?Dr. Nelson (1887) says that "early in August the old birdscommence to disappear, and by the middle of the month are seen onlyoccasionally, although on the 18th of August thej' have been noted onSaint Lawrence Island. The young remain longer and are found inscattered parties all about the settlements and native houses in thesame localities favored by the common Water Wagtail, which occurssparingly along the coast at this season. The Yellow Wagtail tripsdaintly along the grassy margins of the muddy spots, its vibratingtail and slender form distinguishing it among the motley crowd ofSavanna Sparrows, Lapland Longspurs, and common Wagtails whichkeep it company."Mr. Turner (1886), probably referring to the young birds, says:By the 1st of September the birds of this species collect into small flocks,of eight to twenty in number, and remain as late as September 21st, at whichdate they have about all disappeared. Tliey generally signalize their readinessto depart by assembling on the low banks, bordering the beach, and dart highinto the air to return to the same, or similar, place after a few minutes time.At this particular season of the year they are extremely wary and difflcult ofapproach. * * * i once observed the bird on Attn Island (the westernmostof the Aleutian Chain) on Sunday, October 8, ISSO. I chased the bird up anddown for two hours, but was not able to got near enough for a shot, as it wasvery wild. It was evidently on the fall migration, and none were seen afterthat day. It does not remain on the Aleutian Islands during the breedingseason.Like some other representatives of Asiatic species that breed inAlaska, this wagtail does not migrate down the Pacific coast of NorthAmerica but prefers to retrace its steps over the ancestral route andmigrate down the eastern coast of Asia to its winter haunts in south-eastern Asia and the islands beyond, perhaps across Bering Straitor through the western Aleutians.DISTRIBUTIONRange.?According to the A. O. U. Check-list (1931) the Alaskayellow wagtail : "Breeds in the Arctic Zone in extreme northeasternSiberia and western Alaska from Point Barrow and Kotzebue Soundto Nushagak Kiver; migrates through the western Aleutian Islandsto eastern Asia." AMERICAN PIPIT 25ANTHUS SPINOLETTA RUBESCENS (Tunstall)AMERICAN PIPITHABITSThe pipit, apparently a frail but really a hardy bird, seeks its sum-mer home in regions that would seem to us most unattractive andforbidding, among the moss-covered, rocky hills on the bleak coastof Labrador, along the Arctic tundra to northern Alaska, up to 70?on the west coast of Greenland, and then far southward in the RockyMountains to Colorado and New Mexico, where it breeds only abovetree limits on the wind-swept mountaintops. In the far north andin Labrador it breeds on low hills not far above sea level, but in themountains its summer haunts become gradually higher as the treelimit rises; on Mount McKinley, Alaska, it breeds from 4,000 to 5,000feet altitude, in Oregon it is recorded as breeding above 8,500 feet,in Wyoming above 11,000, in Colorado above 12,000, and in NewMexico, at the southern limit of its breeding range, we may find itabove 13,000 feet.On the Labrador coast we found pipits veiy common all along thecoastal strip from Battle Harbor to Cape Mugford, on most of therocky islands and on the inland hilltops above tree growth. In thatregion the only tree gi'owth is found in the sheltered hollows backfrom the coast and in the inland valleys. Elsewhere the coastal stripis mostly bare rock, with a luxuriant growth of reindeer moss, othermosses and lichens clothing the hollows; in the more sheltered placesa few small shrubs and dwarfed deciduous trees struggle for exist-ence. Insect life is abimdant here during the long days of the shortsummer, so that the pipits have an ample food supply ; they seem tothrive in even the most exposed places.Spi^ng.?The pipit, although abundant in fall, seems to avoid NewEngland to a large extent on the spring migi-ation, for it is compara-tively rare and quite irregular here at that season. Its northwardmigration seems tx) be mainly west of the Alleghenies. This pointis well illustrated in Milton B. Trautman's (1940) account of themigration at Buckeye Lake, Ohio. "The first migrating AmericanPipits," he says, "arrived between March 1 and 25. Flocks of mod-erate or large size, 15 to 500 birds, appeared to be dominant in spring,and only during the very last part of migration were groups of lessthan 10 birds often observed. The peak of migration occurred fromthe last of March until mid-April. Then it was possible to record asmany as 800 individuals in a day. * * * Throughout spring thespecies was found principally in recently plowed fields, in wheat fieldswhere the plants averaged less than 5 inches in height, in short-grasspastures, and on the larger mud flats about 'sky ponds' or overflowpuddles."848290?50 3 26 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMCourtship.?The song flight of the pipit is the most conspicuouspart of the courtship performance. This is very well described by-Joseph Dixon ( 1938) , who observed it on Mount McKinley, as follows : "On May 20, 1926, high up among the vanishing snowfields on arocky barren ridge at 4,000 feet, we watched a male pipit in full nuptialjQight. It perched on a rock, then flew almost vertically into the skyfor a distance of from 50 to 150 feet, singing a single note which wasrepeated constantly. Then with legs extended, feet spread out, andtail sticking upwards at a sharp angle, this male bird sang steadilyas he fluttered his wings and floated down like a falling leaf, usuallylanding near the place from whence he began his flight."Dr. Charles W. Townsend (Townsend and Allen, 1907) observeda similar flight-song in Labrador and gives the following informationabout it:As he went up he sang repeatedly a simple refrain, che-ivMe, clie-wMe witha vibratory resonance on the icMe. Attaining an eminence of * * * per-haps 200 feet from the ground, he checked himself and at once began thedescent. He went down faster and faster, repeating his song at the same timefaster and faster. Long before he reached the ground he set his wings andtipped from side to side to break his descent. After remaining quiet on theground for a few moments he repeated the performance and we watched himgo up four or five times. On one occasion he was twenty seconds going up,emitting his refrain forty-eight times. In the descent he was quicker, accom-plishing it in ten seconds and singing thirty-two bars of his song.Gayle Pickwell (1947) noticed, on Mount Rainier, Wash., that twomales in the vicinity of a female "were battling violently. One ofthe males was on the near-by snow. The other male plunged downfrom above with a detennination rarely to be obsei^ved in avian bat-tles. * * * These pipits fought on the ground as well as in theair. One stayed largely on the snow while the other dashed uponhim from above and there was no denying the seriousness of theirstruggles."Nesting.?The two nests of the American pipit that I saw^ on thecoast of Labrador in 1912 were probably typical of the species, in thatlocality at least. The first nest was shown to me on July G, in the bare,rocky hills of Battle Island, by two of Dr. Grenfell's nurses. MissCoates and Miss Thompkins, whom I had met in Newfoundland. Thenest was very prettily located on the side of a little moss-covered ridgeor hummock, in a little valley near the top of the moss- and lichen-covered island ; it was sunk deeply into the soft mosses that overhungthe entrance on the side of the little cavity ; the nest seemed to be madeentirely of fine, dry grasses. It contained five eggs, which I did notdisturb. The incubating bird was quite tame and, if quietly ap-proached, could almost be touched on the nest.The other nest (pi. 2) was shown me by an Eskimo, on July 21, nearHopedale. It was similarly located, near the top of a bare, rocky hill, AMERICAN PIPIT 27under the overhanging edge of a moss-covered hummock; it was alarger nest than the other and was made of fine twigs and coarse grassesand lined with finer grass ; the four eggs that it contained were nearlyready to hatch.There is little to be said about the nests in other localities, exceptthat they are always placed on the ground in decidedly open situations,but they are almost always more or less sheltered under some outcrop-ping rock or projecting stones, or under the overhang of some eminence.Some dried moss may be placed in the hollow to protect the eggsagainst the moisture from the ground, but the nests seem to be madealmost entirely of dried grasses and to have no other warm lining.A nest mentioned in some notes sent to me by O. J. INIurie was "placedin the moss at the edge of a rock, back under a willow root."Of two nests observed by Gayle Pickwell (1947), "one w^as in aclump of yellow heather and another beneath the leaves of a purpleaster."Eggs.?The American pipit lays four to seven eggs; four and fiveseem to be the commonest numbers. They are ovate and have verylittle gloss. The ground color is grayish white or dull white, some-times buffy W'hite, but it is often so thickly covered with the markingsthat it is hardly visible and the egg appears to be of a dark chocolatecolor, indistinctly marked with small black lines. In the less heavilymarked eggs the spots are more distinct and are in various shades ofbright or dull browns, from chocolate to hair brown, or in some shadesof drab or gray. Sometimes these markings are concentrated into solidcolor at the larger end. The measurements of 50 eggs in the UnitedStates National Museum average 19.9 by 14.7 millimeters; the eggsshowing the four extremes measure 21.8 by 15.5, 17.8 by 14.2, and 19.8by 13.7 millimeters.Young.?The period of incubation does not seem to have been defi-nitely determined, but it probably does not differ materially from thatof closely related European species, 13 or 14 days. According to theobservations of Hazel S. Johnson (1933), at Wolf Bay, Labrador, theyoung leave the nest about 13 days after hatching. The brooding isdone entirely by the female, but both sexes assist in feeding the young."While in the nest the young were fed at quite regular intervalsthroughout the long July days. My notes show that they were fed asearly as 4: 30 a. m. (I believe that feeding started even earlier) andcontinued as late as 8: 55 p. m. Eain and fog did not seem to retardfeeding activities of the parent birds." Her table indicates that theinterval between feedings varied from 5 to 19 minutes; the number offeedings for a 2-hour period varied from 5 to 19 ; both of these periodswere late in the day. She continues : As the female spent the greater part of her time on the nest, the male broughtmost of the food during the first six days. Flies and small larvae were the main 28 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMdiet. One large larva or from two to four smaller ones were brought at onetime so that each trip represented a fairly constant quantity of food. * ? ?Sometimes one parent did all the feeding but more often the food was dividedand both fed, placing all of it in the mouth of one young bird then removing bitswhich they gave to others. Vei-y rarely did the female eat any of the food broughtby her mate.After feeding both birds would look expectantly at the nest. When a mass ofexcreta appeared it was promptly seized and consumed or carried away. In mostcases the female secured it but evidently there was some competition betweenthe parents for this privilege. During the last few days of the nesting periodexcreta were carried off and the nature of its disposal is unknown.The six young hatched on July 2 ; the growth of the young was uni-form; on July G pinfeathers were through the skin, and on the 11ththe feathers were out of the sheaths.They were last seen in the nest in the late afternoon of the 15th. That eveningthey were out of the nest but nearby. Next morning a hawk was shot near thenest site and was reported to have been attacking young birds. This may accountfor the fact that but three of the brood were seen on the 17th, with the twoparent birds.Between July 16 and August 3 the family of three young with one or bothparents was often seen about the woodpile and house of a local family about 300yards from the nest site. * * * During the first two weeks out of the nestthe young birds seemed to make little effort to find food for themselves but waiteduntil the parent birds brought food and placed it in their mouths. Sometimes theold birds would utter a twittering chirp when food was found, whereupon oneor more young would go to the parent to receive it.Plumages.?Dr. Dwight (1900) describes the juvenal plumage main-ly as follows : "Above, hair-brown streaked with black, the edgings ofthe back pale grayish wood-brown, * * * Below, creamy buff,palest anteriorly, streaked on the throat and breast rather broadlyand on the sides faintly with clovebrown. Indistinct superciliaryline and orbital ring buffy white; auriculars wood-brown."An incomplete postjuvenal molt, which involves the contour plum-age but not the wings or the tail, occurs mainly in August. This pro-duces a first-winter plumage, which is practically indistinguishablefrom that of the adult. Dr. Dwight describes this as similar to thejuvenal plumage, but "darker above with less obvious streaking anddeeper pinkish buff below, the streaking heavier, forming a pectoralband and extending to the flanks ; an immaculate pale buff chin. Thesuperciliary line extends behind the eye as a whitish band." KidgAvay(1904) says that the young in the first autumn and winter are "similarto winter adults, but upper parts decidedly brown and superciliarystripe and under parts rather deeper brownish buff, with streaks onchest, etc., less sharply defined."Dr. Dwight (1900) says that the first nuptial plumage is "acquiredby a partial prenuptial moult, in April, involving most of the bodyplumage which has suffered much from wear and become darker above AMERICAN PIPIT 29with the buff tints nearly lost below. The extent of the fading is sur-prising. The new plumage is buff tinged, but wear during the breedingseason produces a black and white streaked bird, the buffs being whollylost through fading." Ridgway (1904) says of this first nuptial plum-age : "The species breeds in this plumage, which is very different fromthe fully adult sununer dress, * * * upper parts grayish, as insummer adults, but superciliary stripe and under parts paler (dull palebuffy or dull buffy white) than in winter adults, the chest, sides, andflanks conspicuously streaked w^ith dusky."Adults have a complete postnuptial molt late in summer, mainly inAugust, and a partial prenuptial molt, mainly in April, involving mostof the contour plumage. Fall birds in fresh plumage are brownerabove and more buffy below, and spring birds are grayer above andpaler below, the spring female being less grayish above, more brownish,and more heavily spotted below than the male ; but the two sexes arevery much alike in all plumages.Food.?Forbush's (1929) account of the food seems to cover thesubject quite satisfactorily, as follows:The food of the Pipit consists largely of insects, small molluscs and crustaceans,small seeds and wild berries. More than 77 percent of its food has been foundto consist of insects, of which over 64 percent are injurious. The seeds are chieflyweed seeds and waste grain. Professor Aughey found an average of 47 locustsand 4 other insects in the stomachs of some Nebraska specimens. The Pipit takesweeA'ils, bugs, grasshoppers, crickets, plant-lice and spiders. It renders valuableservice to the cotton growers of the South by destroying boll weevils. Exami-nation of the stomachs of G8 birds taken in cotton fields showed that half of themhad eaten 120 boll weevils. Mr. A. H. Howell says that Pipits pick up weevilsthroughout the winter, and in the spring they follow the plowman and captureboth weevils and grubs. During an outbreak of grain aphids, these destructiveinsects constituted more than 70 per cent of the food of a Pipit. Mr. McAteeestimated that a flock of these birds then present must have destroyed at leasta million of these pests daily.According to Preble and McAtee ( 1923) , "this species is reported byHanna to feed during its stay on the [Pribilof ] islands in fall migra-tion almost exclusively on maggots on the killing fields. However, thecontents of two stomachs, collected August 31, 1914, and September 20,1916, contained no trace of such maggots. The food in these gizzardsconsisted of 10 per cent vegetable matter (seeds of a violet, Yiola langs-dorfii) and 90 percent animal matter. The components of the animalfood were beetles (ground beetles, Pterostichus sp. ; and weevils,Lophalo'phus inqumatus) , 37 per cent ; caterpillars, 33.5 per cent; plantbugs {Irbisia sericarts), 8 per cent; spiders, 7.5 per cent; flies, 2.6 percent; and Hymenoptera, 1.5 per cent."Dr. George F. Knowlton writes to me : "On October 5, 1942, W. E.Peay and I encountered a large flock of the American pipit, extendingfrom the Petersboro foothills in Cache Valley to Collinston, Utah. 30 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMThe birds were very abundant along the road, feeding among Rnssijtnthistle. Hundreds also were feeding in alfalfa and in the wheatstubble, many alighting in plowed fields. Eighteen were collected andan examination of their stomachs revealed : 1 thysanuran ; 19 collem-bolans ; 102 Homoptera, 76 being aphids (of which 14 were pea aphids)and 13 leafhoppers. Hemiptera constituted the largest group with1,527 recognizable specimens, of which 980 were adult and 291 nymphalfalse chinch bugs and 39 mirids. The 133 beetles included 46 weevilsof which 8 were alfalfa weevils, 1 a clover leaf weevil and 19 adultclover root curculios. Ten of the 29 Hymenoptera were ants ; most ofthe 14 Diptera were adults. In addition to the insects there were 8spiders and mites, 92 seeds and a number of stomachs contained vary-ing amounts of plant fragments."Practically all the pipit's food is obtained on the ground, in shortgrass or low-growing herbage, on bare ground or open mud flats, ondrifted sea wrack along the coast, and on the salt or brackish marshesalong tidal streams. On its alpine breeding ground it has been seenpicking up insects on the snowbanks, where they had been blown by thewind. In all such places it walks along daintily on its long legs, pick-ing up seeds or insects from the ground or herbage, sometimes runningrapidly in pursuit of an escaping insect. Mr. Cogswell writes to me : "On January 11, 1942, at Dominguez Lagoon, south of Los Angeles, Iobserved pipits varying their usual ground foraging procedure byperching on the branches of tall weeds growing in the shallow waterand reaching for insects (?) among heads of the plants."Mr. Trautman (1940) reports an interesting feeding reaction: "Isaw some 20 individuals of this species on a peat island near the eastend of Cranberry marsh. They faced a moderate breeze, and indi-viduals from the group were flying into the air 3 or 4 feet, capturingmoderate-sized flying beetles, and then dropping upon the islandagain. Usually 4 or 5 birds were in the air at once. The continualbobbing up and down was a strange sight, and somewhat resembledthat of trout in a pool rising after insects."Lucien M. Turner says in his unpublished notes that about the whal-ing stations in northern Ungava, where the carcasses of the whitewhales are left to rot, incredible numbers of flies are attracted andtheir maggots "fairly make the earth creep." Great numbers ofpipits resort to these places to feast on these larvae. He also sawthese birds wading in the shallow pools on the tidal flats, searchingfor aquatic worms and larvae.Behavior.?Pipits are essentially terrestrial birds and spend mostof their time on the ground, in the fields, meadows, marshes, mudflats, beaches, or on the bare rocks of their summer haunts. Somewriters have stated that they never alight anywhere else, but such iscertainly not so. In Labrador we frequently saw them walking on AMERICAN PIPIT 31the roofs of tilts, where codfish was drying, or alighting on the roofsof the fish houses and even on the roofs of the dwelling houses and onthe rooks around them. On migrations, we often see them perched intrees, on wire fences or fence posts, on the ridge poles of houses, andon telephone or telegraph wires. Dr. Knowlton writes to me that,in the locality where he collected the birds referred to above, "thou-sands of pipits were present over an area 6 to 15 miles wide. Thebirds would fly ahead of the car, aligliting on fence posts and fencewires near the approaching vehicle. However, when disturbed by aman walking along the road, large numbers would sometimes flyaway and alight in the field at some distance from the collector. Theyseldom were much disturbed by the firing of a .22 rifle or a small44x1 bird gun."When on the ground the pipit walks gracefully and prettily, witha nodding motion of the head, like a dove, and with the body swayingslightly from side to side as he moves quietly along; sometimes heruns more rapidly. His colors, soft grays and browns, match his sur-roundings so well, and he moves so quietly with an easy gliding mo-tion, that before we realize that he is there he rises with a large flockof his fellows, as if exploding from nowhere, and they go flying offto some safer spot, twittering as they fly.Francis H. Allen contributes the following note: "At one time Ifound the grass fairly 'swarming' with them at a fence corner, andone might have gone within two or three rods without seeing them,so closely did they creep along the ground. Here one of them stoodon a large stone, spread his tail prettily, and scratched his right eardeftly with his right foot. The books seem to say that when on theground they wag their tails constantly, but this is not literally true,for the tail is sometimes quiet as the bird walks, and extended straightbehind, the whole slender bird presenting a peculiarly flat appear-ance as he steps daintily along. I thought that the tail was moreconstantly wagged when the bird was standing than when he walked."Observers differ as to the amount of tail wagging and when it oc-curs, but the pipit belongs to the wagtail family and must indulge ina certain amount of it. Audubon (1841) stated that the pipit wagsits tail when it stops walking; Forbush (1929) says "almost con-stantly moving the tail" ; and others have referred to it as a constanthabit. Probably there is some individual variation in the habitbetween different birds, or at different times in the same individual.Milton P. Skinner (1928) watched particularly for this habit in NorthCarolina and found that it was not a constant one. He noted that "their bodies and tails swung from side to side in time with eachstep," and says : In every case this sidewise movement of the tail was an accompaniment ofthe body movement, and I did not see a single Pipit move its tail sidexmse inde- 32 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL IVIUSEUMpendently of the body. But I found there was another movement of the tail,vp and down, that was sometimes made. Of one hundred and forty birdswatched on January 28, 1927, some tipped their tails up and dotcn rapidly whilewalking and while resting on the ground but many of them did not. Ten dayslater, I noted that only a few of these pipits moved their tails up and down,and that even these movements were noticeable only when the birds alightedafter flight, and then there were only two to five movements. On March 1, 1927,I observed that when these birds stopped tcalJcing they moved their tails moreor less regularly, but the motion was not noticeable tchile they walked, anddisappeared altogether when they ran.The pipit's flight is buoyant and undulating, powerful and swift,but rather erratic, as if the bird were undecided where to go or to stop.A large flock of pipits in flight is an interesting sight ; they rise sud-denly and unexpectedly from almost underfoot, those nearest firstand then rank after rank progressively, as if bursting out of the earth ; all join into one big flock before our astonished eyes and go sweepingoff in a loose, undulating bunch, some rising and some falling in aconfusing mass, like so many swirling snowflakes. They swing in awide circle over the field and back again, swoop downward as if aboutto alight, then off again as if undecided, and finally drop out of sighton the brown earth in the distance, or perhaps return again and settlenear the spot from which they started.Dr. Witmer Stone (1937) thus describes the actions of a large flockof pipits on a burnt-over area : After circling in a large arc they came drifting back and settled down nearwhere they were before. Several times later they flushed but always returnedto the burnt area. By watching exactly where they alighted I was able to detectthem scattered all over the ground, about one bird to each square foot, wherethickest. Their backs had a distinct olive cast in the strong light but the streakson the under parts were only seen clearly when the birds were breast on. Theyall walked deliberately or sometimes took half a dozen steps in rapid succession,almost a run, though less regular. They all moved in the same general directionand as I moved parallel with them I could see them pressing straight aheadthrough the grassy spots and betvreen the grass tufts and the stems of the bushesthat had escaped the fire. They kept their heads pretty well down on the shoul-ders and leaned forward, dabbing at the ground with the bill, to one side orthe other, apparently picking up scattered seeds of grasses and sedges. Thetail was carried parallel with the ground or tilted up a trifle while the tips ofthe wings hung just below its base. The tail moved a little as the bird advancedbut there was no distinct tilting as in the Palm Warbler or the Water-Thrush.Voice.?The American pipit is not a gifted songster, but the fullsong as heard on the breeding grounds is rather pleasing. It sometimessings a weaker suggestion of this song during its spring migrationin April and May. Dr. Harrison F. Lewis has sent me the followingnote on this song : "Pipits sing a good deal when passing Quebec, P. Q.,in the spring migration. Here the song is commonly uttered whilethe birds are on the ground, but I have heard them sing from a tree,in which they perched freely. I do not appear to have any record of AMERICAN PIPIT 33this species singing while in flight. The song is simple, but pleasantand attractive. It sounds like ke-tsee^ he-tsee^ ke-tsee^ ke-tsee^ ke-tsee^tr-r-r-r-r-r-r, ke-tsce^ ke-tsee^ ke-tsee^ tr-r-r-r-r-r-r^ ke-tsee^ etc., andis apparently of indefinite duration. Sometimes the little trills areintroduced into it frequently, at other times sparingly. The song isnot thin, like that of the black and white warbler, but pretty andtinkling, though rather weak."The song-flight has been described under courtship, and the fiight-sonff, as heard on the breeding grounds, is described in the followingnotes from O. J. Murie : "The pipits were generally shy. When I ap-proached one he would fly off with a sharp tsee-seep, tsee-seep, tsee-see-seep, then the impulse to sing would come over him and he wouldflutter his wings and go through his performance. The song wasusually a repetition of syllables, see-see-see-see-see , a peculiarresonant kr accompanying and barely preceding each see, a qualityimpossible to describe adequately. This appeared to be the commonestform of the song. Sometimes it was varied, the notes being almost 2-syllabled, as tsr-ee, tsr-ee, tsr-ee, tsr-ee , and again sounding liketer-ee-a, ter-ee-a, ter-ee-a . Often it was a quite different form,a clear gliding swit-smlt-swit-swit , or a little more prolongedswee-swee-swee-sioee . Frequently a bird would break offon one form of the song and finish on another. The song was usuallygiven on the wing, soaring upward to a height of about a himdred feet,then fluttering downward, finally sailing down to a rock with wingsset and raised, and tail elevated. All this time the bird would sing hisrepetition of the same note, sometimes keeping it up after alighting."The note that we hear on the fall migration, or in winter, is veryshort and simple, suggesting the name pipit. F. H. Allen (MS.)says of the flock he was watching : "The birds got up a few at a timegenerally, uttering as they arose a musical ivit-wit, or wit-wU-ioit-wit,with the accent, I should say, on the last syllable. Wlien they werewell a-wing, their note was a single, short j^root, very pleasing to theear."Mr. Cogswell contributes the following comparison of the notesof two species that are found along our shores and are likely to beconfused: "The usual flight call note of the pipit is distinctive ofthis species, and helpful in separating a distant flying flock fromhorned larks inhabiting similar areas and with somewhat similarcalls. The pipit's note is a sharp tsip tsip, tspi-it, or just tsip?tsip-it; the lark's is lower in pitch and much more rolling, not givenso sharply?thus, sleek, slik-seeezik, or slik-sleesik, or just a sleek,sslik, slik."Field marks.?The American pipit is a plainly colored, gray andbrownish bird with no conspicuous markings, except the white outertail feathers; and even these are not distinctive, for several other 34 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMbirds have them, notably the juncos, the vesper sparrow, and, to -aless extent, the longspurs. The juncos are not often seen in the hauntsof the pipit, and if they were, the color patterns of the different juncosare quite distinctive. The sparrow and longspurs are not so slenderas the pipit; they have short, conical bills, and they hop rather thanrun. The white tail feathers of the pipit show only in flight, but itsslender form and sharp bill, together with its habit of walking orrunning, the nodding of its head, and the frequent up-and-down mo-tion of its comparatively long tail should distinguish it from theothers.Fall.?As soon as the young are able to care for themselves thepipits gather into flocks and begin to drift av/ay from their breedinggrounds before the end of August. We begin to see them in NewEngland in SejDtember, in flocks of varying sizes from a dozen to ahundred or more, mainly coastwise on the salt marshes, on the mudflats, or along the beaches, but often farther inland along tidal streams,in open fields, and on wind-swept hills. They are commoner herein fall than in spring and usually remain to enliven the brown anddreary landscape until the frosts of late November drive them farthersouth. By this time the eastern birds have entirely deserted theirnorthern breeding grounds. In the meantime the western birds havedrifted down from their alpine heights, above timberline, and arespread out over the plains and lowlands. Migrating birds are oftenseen in enormous flocks, as some continue their migration beyond ourborders into Mexico and beyond.Winter.?Although the American pipit extends its winter rangeas far south as Guatemala, most of them spend the winter within thelimits of the United States, fairly commonly as far north as Cali-fornia and Ohio ; farther north it is rarely seen in winter. Dr. Stone(1937) draws the following pen picture of winter pipits in NewJersey : On some day of midwinter when there has been no bhmket of snow such assometimes covers the landscape, even at such a supposed 'semi-tropic' regionas Cape May, we gaze over the broad monotonous expanses of plowed fields andconclude that here at least bird life is absent. We contrast these silent brownstretches with the swamp edges and their bursts of sparrow conversation orwith the old pasture fields where Meadowlarljs are sputtering. But let usstart to cross these apparently deserted fields and immediately with a weakdee-dee, dee-dee, a small brown bird flushes from almost beneath our feet,then another and another, displaying a flash of white feathers in the tail asthey rise. In a moment they have settled again farther on and are lost to sightagainst the brown background as suddenly as they appeared. We advanceagain and now the ground before us seems fairly to belch forth birds, as withone accord, the whole flock takes wing, and with light, airy, undulating andirregular flight, courses away over the fields, now clearly defined against thesky, now swallowed up in the all pervading brown of the landscape. AMERICAN PIPIT 35In the sand hills of North Carolina Mr. Skinner ( 1928) saw pipits "only in the largest hay fields, winter-wheat fields, old cornfieldswhere the stalks are all down, and in old cowpea fields." He did notfind them in plowed fields. In Florida it is a common winter resident,abundant in the more northern parts ; we found it on the KissimmeePrairie and on old fields and marshes elsewhere; A. H. Howell (1932)says that it is occasionally seen on sand dunes and sea beaches. M. G.Vaiden tells me that it occurs in Mississippi as a migrant in bothspring and fall, and "occasionally in winter in great numbers. Theyare usually found on the slopes of the levee ; I have noted flocks of atleast 200 feeding on the levee."Mr. Cogswell (MS. ) says of the winter status of the pipit in southernCalifornia: "This species is a common winter visitant in all suitablelocalities below snow level ; I have found it most abundantly on wetpasturelands and in the fields bordering coastal marshes, but theyare also present in any fields with short or no vegetation. On Febru-ary 10, 1940, they were particularly abundant in the Chino CreekValley and all over the nearby rolling hills, where flocks of hundredsforaged on the ground between the rows of growing grain, whichcompletely hid them from view until they flew."DISTRIBUTIONRange.?The species is circumpolar, breeding in Europe, Asia, andnorthern North America and wintering south to northern Africa,southern Asia, and Central America.Breeding range,?The breeding range of the American races of thepipit is in the Arctic-Alpine regions north to northern Alaska (MeadeRiver, about 100 miles south of Point Barrow, and Collison Point) ;northern Yukon (Herschel Island) ; northern Mackenzie (Kittigazuit,Franklin Bay, and Coronation Gulf) ; southern Somerset Island (FortRoss) ; northern Baffin Island (Arctic Bay and Ponds Inlet) ; andabout 75? north latitude on the west coast of Greenland (Devils ThumbIsland). East to west coast of Greenland (Devils Thumb Islandand Upernivik) ; eastern Baffin Island (Eglinton Fjord, CumberlandSound, and Frobisher Bay) ; Labrador (Port Burwell, Hebron, Okkak,and Battle Harbor) ; Newfoundland (Cape Norman, Twillingate, andCape Bonavista) . South to Newfoundland (Cape Bonavista and theLewis Hills), southeastern Quebec (Grosse Isle, Magdalen Islandsrarely; Mount Albert and Tabletop, Gaspe Peninsula); northernMaine (summit of Mount Katahdin) ; northern Ontario (Moose Fac-tory) ; northern Manitoba (Churchill) ; central Mackenzie (ArtilleryLake and Fort Providence) ; southwestern Alberta (Banff NationalPark) ; western Montana (Glacier National Park, Big Snowy Moun- 36 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMtains, and Bear Tooth Mountains) ; Wyoming (Big Horn Mountains,Wind Kiver Mountains, and the Medicine Bow Mountains) ; Colo-rado (Longs Peak, Mount Audubon, Seven Lakes, Pikes Peak, andMedano Creek) ; central northern New Mexico (Taos Mountains andPecos Baldy) ; northeastern Utah (Uintah Mountains) ; central Idaho(Salmon Kiver Mountains) ; and northern Oregon (Wallowa Momi-tains and, possibly. Mount Hood) ; has also been found in summernear the summit of Mount Shasta and Mount Lassen, Calif., butnot surely breeding. West to Oregon (Mount Hood) ; the Cascadesof Washington (Mount St. Helens, Moimt Adams, and Mount Kai-nier) ; British Columbia (mountains near Princeton, near Doch-da-onCreek, Summit, and Atlin; southwestern Yukon (Burwash Landingand Teepee Lake) ; and the Aleutian Islands and western Alaska(Frosty Peak, Unalaska, the Near Islands, Nunivak Island, Wales,Kobuk River, and Meade River) ; has been found also on St.. Law-rence Island.Winter range.?The pipit occurs in winter north to southwesternBritish Columbia (southern Vancouver Island, occasionally) ; westernWashington (Tacoma, Nisqually Flats, and Vancouver) ; Oregon(Portland, Corvallis, and along the Malheur River) ; Utah (OgdenValley, Utah Lake, and St. George) ; central to southern Arizona (FortWhipple, Fort Verde, and Tucson) ; southern New Mexico (San An-tonio and Carlsbad) ; southern and eastern Texas (Fort Clark, Kerr-ville, Austin, Waco, and Commerce) ; occasionally central Arkansas(Van Buren) ; northern Louisiana (Shreveport and Monroe) ; Tennessee, uncommon (Memphis, Nashville, Kjioxville, and JohnsonCity) ; and southern Virginia (Blacksburg, Naruna, and VirginiaBeach) ; occasionally north to northern Ohio (Huron and Painesville)New Jersey (Seaside Park) ; Long Island (Long Beach and Orient)Connecticut (Saybrook) ; and Massachusetts (Newburyport). Eastto the Atlantic Coast States from southern Virginia (Virginia Beach)to southern Florida (Fernandina, St. Augustine, and Daytona Beach,Kissimmee, and Key West rarely) . South to Florida (Key West, FortMyers, and St, Marks) ; the Gulf coast to southern Texas (Rockportand Brownsville) ; eastern Mexico (Rodriguez, Nuevo Leon; Puebla;and Huajuapam, Oaxaca) ; Guatemala; and northern El Salvador(Volcan de Santa Ana), the southernmost place that it has been re-corded. West to Guatemala (Dueiias) ; Oaxaca (Tehuantepec) ; Sinaloa (Mazatlan) ; Lower California (La Paz and San Quintin)the valleys and coast of California (La Jolla, Santa Barbara, SanFrancisco, Napa, and Eureka) ; western Oregon (Coos Bay andNetarts) ; western Washington (Nisqually Flats) ; and southern Van-couver Island, British Columbia.The range as outlined applies to all the North American races, ofwhich three are now recognized. The western pipit {A. s. pacifieus) AMERICAN PIPIT 37breeds from southeastern Alaska through the Kocky Mountains ofBritish Cohunbia and in the Cascades to Oregon; the Rocky Mountainpipit {A. s. altlcola) breeds in the Rocky Mountain region from Mon-tana to New Mexico; the eastern pipit {A. s. nibescens) breeds fromAhiska to Greenhind south to southern Yukon and Mackenzie toQuebec, Newfoundland, and Mount Katahdin, Maine. In winter theraces are mingled.Migration.?Late dates of spring departure are: El Salvador ? Volcan de Santa Ana, April 16. Lower California?San Jose delCabo, May 3. Sonora?Granados, May 6. Florida?Pensacola, April27. Georgia?Athens, May 9. South Carolina?Charleston, April22. North Carolina?Pea Island, May 16. District of ColumbiaWashington, May 14. Pennsylvania?Erie, May 12. New YorkPotter, May 16. Mississippi?Biloxi, April 29. Louisiana?Lobdell,May 2. Arkansas?Lake City, April 29. Kentucky?Bowling Green,May 8. Oberlin, May 24. Michigan?McMillan, May 28. OntarioRossport, May 29. Missouri?St. Louis, May 2. Minnesota?LakeVermillion, May 27. Texas?Somerset, May 1. Kansas?Onaga,May 23. Alberta?Genevis, May 26. British Columbia?OkanaganLanding, May 17.Early dates of spring arrival are : District of Columbia?Washing-ton, February 16. Pennsylvania?State College, February 28. NewYork?Ithaca, March 15. Massachusetts?Amherst, March 27.Maine?Auburn, May 2. New Brunswick?Chatham, May 6. Que-bec?Kamouraska, May 6. Ohio?Oberlin, March 4. OntarioLondon, May 1. Michigan?Detroit, March 31. Wisconsin?Mil-waukee, April 20. Kansas?Lawrence, March 12. NebraskaHastings, March 10. South Dakota?Sioux Falls, March 27. NorthDakota?Charlson, April 23. Manitoba?Aweme, April 15;Churchill, May 25. Saskatchewan?Eastend, April 21. WyomingLaramie, April 9. Utah?Brigham, April 4. Montana?Helena,April 9. Alberta?Stony Plain, April 8. Mackenzie?Simpson, May2. British Columbia?Chilliwack, April 6. Alaska?Ketchikan,April 26; Fort Kenai, May 6.Late dates of fall departure are : Alaska?Wainwright, September28. British Columbia?Comox, November 9. Mackenzie?Simpson,October 16. Alberta?Glenevis, October 4. Saskatchewan?Eastend,October 16. Montana?Fortine, October 27. Wyoming?Laramie,November 6. Manitoba?Aweme, October 28. North Dakota?Ar-gusville, October 28. South Dakota?Lake Poinsett, November 2.Nebraska?Gresham, November 1. Kansas?Onaga, November 25,Minnesota?^IVIinneapolis, October 31. Wisconsin?North Freedom,November 1. Illinois?Chicago, November 3. Michigan?Sault St?.Marie, November 8. Ontario?Toronto, November 13. OhioYoungstown, November 22. Quebec?Montreal, November 4. 38 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMMaine?Machias, November 2. Massacliiisetts?Harvard, November9. New York?New York, November 27. District of Columbia ? Washington, December 23.Early dates of fall arrival are : Alberta?Glenevis, August 19. Mon-tana?Missoula, September 4. Minnesota?Hallock, September 4.Wisconsin?Madison, September 19. Ontario?Ottawa, September9. Michigan?Blaney, September 19. Illinois?Hinsdale, Septem-ber 14. Kentucky?Lexington, October 10. Tennessee?Memphis,October 10. Mississippi?Ellisville, October 19. Louisiana?NewOrleans, October 10. Massachusetts?Danvers, September 14. NewYork?Orient, September 2. Pennsylvania?Doylestown, September9. District of Columbia?Washington, September 23. VirginiaWytheville, October 24. North Carolina?Greensboro, October 17.South Carolina?Sullivans Island, September 10. Georgia?RoundOak, October 16. Florida?Fort Myers, September 26. TexasSomerset, October 7. Chihuahua?Chihuahua, October 9 ; Lower Cal-ifornia, San Andres, September 21.Very few pipits have been banded, and the 10 recovery records areall of birds retrapped at the place of banding one or two years later.Casual records.?In November 1848 a flock visited Bermuda, fromwhich two birds were shot, the date of one specimen being given asNovember 26. The American pipit has been twice collected on theisland of Helgoland, an immature on November 11, 1851, and anadult on May 17, 1870. An immature bird was collected on Septem-ber 30, 1910, on the island of St. Kilda, Outer Hebrides, Scotland.Egg dates.?Labrador : 21 records, June 10 to July 23 ; 12 records,June 18 to 30, indicating the height of the season.xVlaska : 10 records, June 8 to 28.Colorado : 12 records, June 22 to July 26 ; 9 records, June 25 to 30.ANTHUS SPINOLETTA JAPONICUS Temminck and SchlcgelJAPANESE PIPITCONTBIBUTED BY WiNSOR MAERETT TyLEEHABITSA single specimen of the Japanese pipit, the only individual knownto have occurred in the Western Hemisphere, was taken on NunivakIsland, Alaska, on September 10, 1947. Harry S. Swarth (1934) de-scribes the event of its capture thus : IlaiTold's [the collector's] note-book contains the following entry : "September10, 1927, Cape Etolin, Nunivak Island. A pipit with bold spotting on a cream(rather than buff) breast and belly taken on the rocky shore of the Cape. Itstruck me that its flight and actions were not quite typical of the AmericanPipit, but Its note was not heard. It is nearly one-half inch shorter by measure-ment than the average American Pipit." The capture of this bird (G. A. S. No. JAPANESE PIPIT 3930778, an immature female), the first in North America, has already been recorded(Swarth, 192S, p. 250). Upper mandible brown; lower mandible brown, basalhalf brownish yellow ; iris brown ; tarsus and toes yellowish brown.Swarth (1928), in an earlier paper, reports the taking of this speci-men and points out that a previous published record of the Japanesepipit in the Western Hemisphere is erroneous. He says : "There is aprior record for this bird in North America, based upon the captureof one on St. Paul Island, in the Pribilof group, on August 29, 1916.That specimen is in the United States National Museum, and beingexamined by Dr. Wetmore and Mr. Riley during their scrutiny of thebird here recorded, it proved to be not japonicus but a somewhat unusu-ally colored example of Anthus 8inn6letta rubescens. The present istherefore the first recorded occurrence of the Japanese Pipit within theconfines of the A. O. U. Check-List." Swarth refers to the record ofthe St. Paul Island bird (G. Dallas Hanna, 1920) and to its refutation(Riley and Wetmore, 1928).The Japanese pipit breeds far to the north in the Eastern Hemi-sphere?eastern Siberia, Kamchatka, and the Kurile Islands. It isclosely related in appearance and habits to the American pipit. Itsbreeding grounds lie farther westward than our bird's, extending inSiberia as far west as the Lena River, while the western limit of thebreeding range of the American pipit reaches only the northeastcorner of Siberia.Little has been published concerning the Japanese pipit. J. D. D.La Touche (1930), writing of the bird in eastern China, says:This is a much smaller and darker bird than Blakiston's Pipit. It has a louddouble note of alarm, different from the single 'pee' of the Red-throated Pipit. Itoccurs in flocks in winter on the marshes and wet fields of Soutb-East China ofthe Lower Yangtse, and in spring is found in green corn at Chinkiaug. It moultsin April in the latter locality, and may be seen there until about the middle ofMay and until the end of that month at Cbinwangtao. It is purely a marsh andwet-field or meadow bird. * * * This Pipit appears to only straggle downto India in winter, but it is common in the Shan States and other parts of Burmaand has also, according to Baker, been taken in other Indo-Burmese countries.* * The bird was originally described from Japan, and Dr. Hartert givesKamtschatka, East Siberia, and the Kirile Is. as breeding-range, Japan being onlypart of the winter-quarters. The nidification is apparently unknown.La Touche (1920) remarks further: "It migrates in autumn incompany with the Wagtails and Swallows, many flocks of which fly byin late August and September. I have seen it in the marshes in Octo-ber until the 25th of that month. The first arrivals in spring arestill in winter dress but soon assume the summer plumage, dark ashy-grey, upper parts obscurely spotted, and huffish vinous under parts witha few drop-like spots on the breast and flanks."A handlist of Japanese birds (Ornithological Society of Japan,1932) gives the island of Sakhalin as a breeding ground of theJapanese pipit. 40 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMRiley and Wetmore (1928) point out the distinguishing charactersin the plumage of the Japanese pipit as compared to the Americanpipit. They say: "It is paler below, with heavier markings, duller,less buffy above, has the wing bars more prominently white, and differsin the coloration of the sides of the head."Austin Hobart Clark (1910), in his report of the cruise of thesteamer Albatross in the North Pacific Ocean, says: "I found thisbird common in the grassy lowlands near Milne Bay, Simushir, butvery shy and hard to get. The males were in full song at the time ofour visit, June 23."Nesting.?Bernard W. Tucker contributes the following note:"The nesting of this race, which was originally described from winterbirds in Japan, was long unknown, but in recent years many eggs havebeen obtained by the Japanese in the Kurile Islands, as noted by Yama-shina (1931). In this connection Yamashina gives a reference to apaper by him, 'On a Collection of Birds from Paramushiru Island,North Kuriles', in the Japanese journal Tori, but as this is entirely inJapanese I am unable to state what particulars about nest or eggs arethere given. Again, Hartert and Steinbacher (1938) state that inrecent years it has also been studied on its breeding grounds by Kus-sian ornithologists, but I have not had access to any Russian data, andthe authors quoted give no references."DISTRIBUTIONCONTEIBITED BY BeRN.VRD WILLIAM TUOKERBreeding range.?East Siberia westward at least to the Lena, Kam-chatka, and the Kurile Islands. The Sakhalin bird has been distin-guished as A. s. horealis Hesse, but Hartert and Steinbacher (1938) donot consider this separable.Winter ra^i^e.?Japan, Yangtse Valley, Fohkien and Kwantung,Formosa ; occasionally in Turkestan.ANTHUS PRATENSIS (Linnaens)MEADOW PIPITContributed by Bernard Whjjam TuckerHABITSThe meadow pipit is a common European species breeding regularlyin Iceland and occurring casually, but evidently not very rarely, onthe ea.st coast of Greenland, where it seems certain that it breeds oc-casionally, though the actual finding of a nest with eggs or young hasnot been recorded. The earliest record from Greenland is of one re- MEADOW PIPIT 41 ceived by J. H. Paulsen (1846) taken in 184-i and recorded by him ina footnote to his German translation of Holb0ll's "OrnithologiskeBidrag til den gr0nlandske Fauna." This was the record referred toby Prof. Alfred Newton in the Arctic Manual (1875), which theA. O. U. Check-list quotes. Johan Petersen, who was superintendentof the east-coast colony of Angmagsalik from 1894 to 1915 and whosecareful bird observations are quoted by Helms (1926), met with thespecies repeatedly in that district, though by no means every year.He first observed it in 1903, when four or five were seen by houses inthe colony on May 21 and one was shot and sent home to Denmarkfor identification. The birds remained about in May and June andwere seen with young in July. Birds were also seen on a trip toSermilik Fjord, west of Angmagsalik, at the beginning of June.Petersen records that they were in pairs "and to all appearances theyhad nests in the vicinity." After this his notes do not mention thespecies until 1908, when one was seen on May 9 and 12 and was heardsinging. In 1912 one was seen on May 5 and one was singing on themountains on June 11. The latter bird was seen again on July 13,carrying food and behaving in such a way that it obviously had young.On August 10 old and yoimg birds were seen near the colony. In 1913one was seen on May 12, and finally, on a return visit to Angmagsalikin later years, Petersen again met with the species in August and againon October 10, 1923.F. S. Chapman (1932), the ornithologist of the British Arctic AirRoute Expedition of 1930-31, also met with meadow pipits in theAngmagsalik district. The species was first recorded on May 24, 1931.After this none reappeared till May 28, when, in the observer's words, "a pair started nesting." It is a pity that Chapman was not more ex-plicit on this point and does not state his evidence, since althoughPetersen's observations leave no reasonable doubt that the species doessometimes breed, it appears, as has already been noticed, that no actualnest has yet been recorded. CorLsiclerably farther north, at CapeDalton, Bertram, Lack, and Roberts (1934) on August 20, 1933, saw ameadow pipit that was probably breeding on rocky ground well cov-ered with vegetation. Just previous to flushing the bird a nest wasfound composed of grass on the ground in a site typical for this species.H0rning (1939) has recently added two more autumn records, a maleshot at Kiingmiut, north of Angmagsalik, on September 6, 1933, anda juvenile female at sea off Cape I. A. D. Jensen on Blosseville coaston August 28 of the same year.The meadow pipit, a somewhat smaller and more boldly markedspecies than the American pipit, is a bird of rough grasslands, moors,heaths, sand dunes, and other open country in the breeding season.Though it may be found frequently enough breeding on suitable roughground in the lowlands, it is more especially a bird of hill country and843290?50 4 42 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMupland moors. In many parts of the British Isles and ContinentalEurope there are large tracts of country where the meadow pipitis not only the dominant small bird but almost the only one to be metwith at all commonly. As one walks over the moors one may oftentraverse large areas that are saved from almost complete birdlessnessonly by the meadow pipits, which from time to time rise ahead of onewith their shrill alarm notes, fly a little way with a flitting, jerkyaction, and drop to the ground again. From about April to June thesesame moors are enlivened by the dancing forms of the male birds in theair, as each flutters up with his tinkling, feeble, yet cheery little song,which is completed as he glides to the ground again with wings some-what raised and tail spread.On the heathy barrens of the high north of Europe beyond the treelimit, the meadow pipit is just as prominent a member of the birdpopulation as on the moors of Great Britain, and it is common, too,in Iceland, whence came, no doubt, the birds that have reached theAmerican Continent. In Iceland, writes Hantzsch (1905), it ischaracteristic of the hilly grasslands, upland moors, and heathy tracts,and in the mountains ascends as high as it can find a continuous groundvegetation. The bleak lands of the far north are deserted in winter,and even from temperate regions like the British Isles many emigrate,though many remain. The high ground is, however, mostly deserted,and the species becomes common in the lowlands in places where itdoes not breed. In the more southern parts of its breeding range it ismet with chiefly on grasslands in the mountains.Courtshi'p.?The meadow pipit is one of those small passerinesthat seem to have no very well defined or regular pattern of display.Miss S. M. Butlin (1940) has recorded the behavior of a male whichran four or possibly five times in front of the female "with stiflF, veryupright gait, wings slightly away from body and head held rigidand rather bowed while he sang quietly." The female was crouchingin the solicitation posture, but the male finished the performance byflying off to a heather clump a few yards away, and coition did nottake place although the birds were not disturbed. Miss A. Morley(1940) has witnessed a type of display which has not been recorded byany other observer. She describes how a male which had been movinground the female with slightly drooped wings and cocked-up tail "picked up a large piece of flowering grass and flew with it in his billfor a short way low over the grasses, with a rather slow flight andrapid quivering wings," and this behavior was twice repeated. Droop-ing of the wings by the male, a common action in sexually excited birds,has also been noted by Caroline and Desmond Nethersolc-Thompson(1940) , who add that by a dipping action he displays the white beneaththe tail. These observers also find that "courtship feeding" of thefemale by the male is regularly practiced during incubation either on MEADOW PIPIT 43 or just oif the nest. Whether this behavior also occurs, as in some birds,before incubation begins, when it can be regarded as solely and un-equivocally a courtship action, since the utilitarian element entailed inthe feeding of the female while she is sitting is lacking, does not appearto have been established. The same observers note that during thepairing period sex chases, although less sustained than those of manypasserines, are frequently seen.Nesting.?The nest of the meadow pipit is built in the open in adepression in the ground?which appears to be often a scrape madeby the birds themselves?among grass or in a tuft of rushes or heather,and may be very well concealed or fairly open. It is a cup built ofdry grasses and bents lined with finer material and some horsehair.The nest is built chiefly by the female, though the male assists her;she has been seen examining possible nest places some days beforebeginning to build, but site selection and building may occur on thesame day (C. and D. Nethersole-Thompson, 1943).Eggs.?The eggs are thus described by Jourdain in the Handbookof British Birds (1938, vol. 1) : "Ordinary types brown or grey ingeneral appearance, finely mottled or more boldly marbled with vary-ing shades of brown and ashy grey ; others are almost uniform ochre-ous or pale leaden-grey, with dark hair-streaks, and some sparselyor unmarked on pale blue ground. An er3i:hristic type recorded.Average of 100 British eggs: 19.77x14.63. Max. : 21.4 x 15.7. Min.:18.7 X 14.5 and 19.1 x 14 mm." The usual number of eggs in Britainis four or five, sometimes only three and seldom six. But in moronorthern regions clutches average larger; Blair (1936) found sixthe usual number in the far north of Norway, and clutches of sevenwere found on several occasions. In Iceland Hantzsch (1905) foundno complete clutch of less than five, a number of six, and one of seven.The experience of other observers in northern regions is similar. InEngland the season for eggs is from the latter part of April on,though clutches may rarely be found earlier in the month. In Ger-many it averages rather later; according to Niethamnier (1937) itextends from the beginning, or often only from the middle, of May,or not infrequently even from the end of April, to the end of Juneor occasionally even July. In northern Norway Blair found that thefirst eggs in a large series of nests examined were laid between June2 and 19. In Iceland also the first eggs are usually laid at the endof June, though rarely they may be laid at the end of May (Hantzsch) . These data are selected as representative from a large amount avail-able with regard to this common European bird. In temperate re-gions the species is double-brooded, and this appears to be at leastsometimes the case even in Iceland, as Congreve and Freme (1930)found fresh eggs on May 28 and also on July 5.Young.?Only the female incubates. She is regularly fed on or near 44 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMthe nest by the male, though she may occasionally get some food forherself. Incubation begins, according to the Nethersole-Thompsons(1943), with the penultimate or antepenultimate egg, and the periodis 13-14 days. Wlien the young hatch the shells are removed, andlarge fragments have been found away from the nest from which theyare presumed to have come (C. and D. Nethersole-Thompson, 1942).Both parents feed the young ones, and the feces are carried away by ' the parents and dropped in flight or after the bird settles. The latterobservation we owe to Lt. Col. B. M. B.yves, an indefatigable observerof the details of the breeding economy of British birds, and Dr. H. J.Moon, whose notes are quoted in a paper on nest sanitation by R. H.Blair and the present writer (1941). Jourdain gives the fledglingperiod as 13-14 days, but the young are often not fully capable offlight when they leave the nest.Plumages.?The plumages are fully described by H. F. Witherbyin the Handbook of British Birds (1938, vol. 1). The brownish-graydown of the nestling is fairly long and plentiful, distributed on the in-ner and outer supraorbital, occipital, humeral, ulnar, spinal, femoral,and ventral tracts, but is very scanty on the last two. The mouth in-side is carmine, and the flanges of the bill are pale yellow externally.There are no tongue spots, but the tongue spurs are whitish.The Juvenal plumage is much like that of the adult, but the darkcentral streaks of the feathers of the upperparts are more distinctand the brown edgings smaller. The first-winter plumage is like theadult's.Food.?The food consists almost exclusively of insects and othersmall invertebrates obtained on the ground. Jourdain (1938, vol. 1)mentions: "Coleoptera {Byi^hus, Athous, Cercyon, Longitarsus, Oxy-telus, Tachypoms, Limnohlus, etc., and larvae), small Orthoptera,Diptera {Tipula, Eristalis, Calliphora, and larvae), Hemiptera, Hy-menoptera, and larvae of Lepidoptera. Also earthworms (Saxby),spiders, and occasionally seeds."Behavior.?Something has been said about general behavior on thebreeding ground in the introductory remarks. This is a terrestrialspecies, the ordinary gait, as in other pipits, being a fairly deliberatewalk, though it can also run on occasions. The tail tends to be movedslightly up and down as it walks. It has often been alleged that itseldom or only exceptionally perches in trees, but this is altogethertoo sweeping a statement. Though admittedly it perches in treesmuch less regularly than its European relative, the tree pipit, it isnot particularly unusual for it to do so in places where trees are pres-ent, and this is especially true on migration. It would, however, befair to say that when the meadow pipit settles in trees it is moreoften than not only a passing expedient adopted because something MEADOW PIPIT 45has disturbed it on the gi'ound. And, true to its characteristic loveof the open, it rarely if ever perches in the cover of foliage. Theflight as a rule is rather flitting and jerky, rising and falling in asomewhat erratic fashion rather than regularly undulating as with agood many small birds. Outside the breeding season the species isinclined to be gregarious, though the members of a party or flockgenerally maintain only a somewhat loose contact.Voice.?The note when the bird is flushed is a feeble, thin, squeakytseep or fsiip, or in point of fact more usually an unbroken string ofthese shrill notes uttered in quick succession. The call note, heardchiefly on the breeding ground, is a more sibilant and slightly fuller,but still shrill fissip or tisp, the disyllabic form being typical thoughnot invariable. The oj)ening notes of the song have much the samequality. The tinkling sequence of simple notes gathers speed as thebird flutters up from the ground to, at most, a hundred feet or so andas it planes down again passes into a succession of slightly more musi-cal notes finally becoming a trill, which continues till the singer reachesthe ground. On the descent the bird glides down with wings partlyspread and inclined somewhat upward and the tail fanned, but thereare minor variations in this song flight. At the top of the ascent itmay fly a little way more or less level before beginning to drop, or itmay even sink a little and rise again, prolonging the song accordingly.The length of the song and the relative duration of the two parts, therise and fall, vary a good deal. Timings of the total length quotedby E. M. Nicholson (1936) range from 12 to 25 seconds. Shorter, moreimperfect versions may be given from bushes, fences, or other lowperches or even from the ground. In the south and midland parts ofEngland the period of regular song is from about mid-March to earlyin July. Occasional song may be heard from mid-February and afterthe regular song period is over until the beginning of August. As anexceptional occurrence it has been noted as late as mid-September andeven October.Field 7narks.?An obvious pipit, but rather smaller than the Ameri-can species, and much more strongly marked, both back and breastbeing boldly streaked with black. The exact coloring of the upper-parts varies from olive or greenish gray to browner shades and thewhite outer tail feathers are conspicuous when the bird is flushed. Itis a bird of open country, little given to perching on trees, thoughit will do so at times. In Europe it requires to be distinguished fromthe very similar tree pipit {Anthus trivialis)^ which, as the commonname suggests, perches in trees habitually and has a different song.However, as this species has not occurred in America and does notappear likely to do so, it need not detain us further. In the nonbreed-ing plumage the red-throated pipit also much resembles the present 46 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM species. The distinctions are given under the field marks of the formerbird.Enemies.?^As a bird of open country and a common one at that themeadow pipit is largely preyed upon by hawks. Reference to Jour-dain's account of British birds in the Handbook of British Birds (1939,vol. 3) shows that it has been definitely recorded in the dietary ofevery British-breeding bird of prey that takes birds at all, with theexception of the marsh harrier and the kite. Even the bold peregrine(duck hawk) and the stately golden eagle will condescend to takea meadow pipit on occasions, while it may be said to constitute the mainfood in the breeding season of the merlin (pigeon hawk), which fre-quents similar country. It is also largely taken by the hen and Mon-tagu's harriers, near relatives of the marsh hawk of America, alsobirds of open country, and it quite frequently falls a victim to theEuropean sparrow hawk, which though primarily a woodland birdregularly hunts over open ground.The meadow pipit is one of the species most commonly parasitizedby the European cuckoo.A list of invertebrate parasites of the species is given by Niethammer(1937).Fall and winter.?Fall is a time of active movement among meadowpipits, and the movements in the British Islands illustrate on a smallerscale those that take place over the general range of the species.Birds from the northern and more elevated regions abandon thesefor the winter, and, though many emigrate, some are contented tospread over the lower ground at no very great distance from theirbreeding haunts, so that the species becomes common in many placeswhere it does not nest or does so only sparingly. It is evident, how-ever, that many of these wintering birds are migrants that have comein from abroad. They are now to be found in flocks and parties onopen fields and rough grasslands of all sorts and on waste or culti-vated land, with a noticeable liking for wet or partially flooded ground,which also attracts them to the borders of lakes and inland watersand to coastal salt or other marshes. They are also often found feed-ing on arable land among root crops such as rutabagas or turnips andmay be observed picking over debris along tide marks on the seashore.The flocks are largest at the migration period in fall. Later, partlyno doubt because many of those in the fall flocks were birds of pas-sage that have passed on, but also as the result of a general tendencyto dispersal, the parties are generally smaller. They do not main-tain any close coherence; the birds scatter rather widely over theirfeeding grounds and when approached rise in ones and twos or littlegroups rather than as a body. At night they roost on the ground,making use of such shelter as offers. It may be provided by the over-hanging leaves in a turnip field or by other broad-leaved plants in a MEADOW PIPIT 47marsh or piece of waste ground, by tussocky grass or rushes in theopen, or by a young plantation of conifers. Again, birds may some-times be found roosting off the ground in hedges, but this appearsgenerally to happen in severe or snowy weather.In the Mediterranean countries, where the species breeds only spar-ingly on high ground or not at all, meadow pipits are common inwinter on essentially the same types of ground described above, andI recall particularly watching many of them, with a sprinkling ofwater pipits?the European racial form of the pipit of Americafrom the neighboring mountains?feeding on partially flooded landin the precise area north of Naples where at the moment of penningthese words the Anglo-American armies are fighting. In NorthAfrica it occurs also in the hills in winter.DISTRIBUTIONBreeding range.?Iceland, Faeroes, British Isles, and ContinentalEurope south to the Pyrenees, central France, northern Italy, Yugo-slavia, Rumania, and south Russia, east through northern Siberiato the Yenisei.Winter range.?Far north deserted and range extends to all Euro-pean Mediterranean countries and North Africa and to southwestand west-central Asia.Spring migration.?The return passage of birds that have winteredfarther south is recorded from mid-March to mid-April on the southcoast of England and from as early as mid-February on that of Ireland(Ticehurst, 1938, vol. 1). In Germany passage is described as tak-ing place from March to May, but on Helgoland Gatke (1895) recordsit as beginning as early as February 24. On the Arctic coast ofNorway the first arrivals were not noted by Blair (1936) until May15, but the first birds reach the south coastal districts of Iceland bythe end of April, though the inland regions are not occupied untilwell into May (Hantzsch). Meinertzhagen's (1930) latest recordfor Egypt is March 20, but on the north side of the Mediterraneanbirds are present in some numbers until much later. Alexander's(1927) last date for the Rome district of central Italy is April 13,and this agrees closely with the present writer's for the Naples dis-trict, April 12.Fall rnigration.?Southward movement of northern birds in Britainfrom about mid-August to late in October. Emigratory movementsfrom late in September to late in November. From early in Septemberto late in October or November large numbers of immigrants arrivefrom abroad, some to winter, others to pass on (Ticehurst). In Ger-many the passage is described as lasting from September to Novem-ber (Niethammer). Most leave Iceland by the middle or end of Sep- 48 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMtember (Hantzsch). Earliest dates in Rome district of Italy, October4 (Alexander), Naples district, October 5 (B. W. T.), Egypt, end ofOctober, but once September 29 (Meinertzhagen).Casual records.?Madeira, Canaries.ANTHUS CERVINUS (Pallaa)RED-THROATED PIPITContributed by Bebnabd William TuckerHABITSThe red-throated pipit is a mainly Siberian species that has occurredaccidentally on the west side of the American Continent. The earli-est authority for its occurrence quoted b}'^ the authors of the A. O. U.Check-list, namely Zander (1854) in the Journal flir Ornithologiefor 1853, says no more than that its range extends through Asia asfar as the islands near America ("bis zu den Inselin bei Amerika"),and although it may be assumed that such a statement was based onactual specimens no other particulars are given, nor has the presentwriter been able to trace any. Turner (1886), however, records aspecimen taken at St. Michael, Western Alaska, in 1867, and Ridg-way (1883) another taken at San Jose del Cabo, Lower California, onJanuary 26, 1883, a rather surprising time of j'ear. Recently Fried-mann (1937) has added a third record, of a bird taken on St. Law-rence Island, Alaska, in July 1936, by an Eskimo collector.The range of the species extends west from Siberia into northernRussia and northern Scandinavia, where it overlaps with that of themeadow pipit, previously described. But whereas the meadow pipitis a widely distributed species in Europe, extending northward tothe coasts of the Arctic Ocean, the red-throated pipit is exclusivelyan Arctic species whose range barely overlaps the northern limits ofthe forest belt, but on the other hand extends north of ContinentalEurope to embrace the Arctic islands of Kolgiiev, Novaya Zemlya,and Waigatz, which the meadow pipit does not reach.In Arctic Norway, though the habitats of the two species are notrigidly separated, the red-throated pipit appears on the whole to likesomewhat bushier and damper ground than does the meadow pipit. Inthe south of its range it is found on high fells above the tree limit,but in the north it is confined to lower levels, especially near the sea.As described by Blair (1936), "swamps overgrown with dwarf birchand willow and damp grassy flats are the favourite haunts of thispipit," but it also, as he mentions, has a marked predeliction for cul-tivation and the neighborhood of farmsteads and habitations, wheresuch are available. Thus at Vadso in Arctic Norway it is common RED-THROATED PIPIT 49 about the little cultivated meadows and damp patches with scrubbygrowth of Salix and birch close to the little towns. I have, however,found it plentiful in a quite different type of habitat from those abovementioned, on the island of Vardo, off the same coast. Here itschosen terrain consisted of a certain amount of grass pasture, a cer-tain amount of heathy ground with the usual Arctic heath associationdominated by crowberry (Empetrum, nigrum)^ and considerable out-crops of rock with no scrub at all.Nesting.?The nest is built on the gi"ound in a recess in the side ofa hummock in marsliy localities, often sheltered by scrub growth ofdwarf birch, willow, or other plants or sometimes, as I have seen it,on the grassy verge of a roadside or near the borders of a meadownear small farmsteads or villages. It is built of dry grass and bentslined with similar but finer material, with occasionally some hair, butwithout feathers. The owners tend to show up more than in the caseof the meadow pipit and, Maj. W. M. Congreve (1036) describes themale as noisy and conspicuous, always giving away the fact that hehas a nest in the vicinity.Eggs.?The eggs aie described by Jourdain in the Handbook ofBritish Birds (1938) as variable, ranging from types with evenlyfreckled markings on a blue-gray ground to an almost uniformochreous with a dark hair line, or with rich mahogany-red cloudingsor bold sepia markings on an olive-gray ground. He gives the fol-lowing measurements of 100 eggs: average, 19.2 by 14.2; maximum,21 by 14.3 and 18.1 by 15.1 ; minimum, 17.1 by 13.9 and 18 by 13.4minimum. Congreve (1936) considers them less variable than thoseof the meadow pipit and states that they commonly have blackishspots sometimes with a "penumbra" and to a limited extent bunting-like streaks. According to Jourdain the clutch is usually six, some-times five, rarely four or seven, and the season is from about mid-June to early in July. Congreve in Arctic Norway found the earliestnest in 1935 (c/7, fresh) on June 20, and fresh or slightly incubatedeggs until the end of the month, and Blair (1936) in the same regionrecords full clutches from June 16 to 24, while Williams (1941) in alate season found no full sets until early in July. The experiences ofother observers, to much the same effect, are summarized by Pleske(1928).Young.?Only the hen has been found incubating, and Congrevestates that she is fed by the male both on and off the nest. Bothparents feed the young, of which, in the short Arctic summer, onlyone brood is reared. "Injury-feigning" by a bird off a nest is recordedby Williams (1941). An exact fledging period is not recorded.Plwniages.?Tlie plumages are fully described by H. F. Witherby(1938, vol. 1) in the Handbook of British Birds. The nestling has 50 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMfairly long and plentiful down of a dark gray-brown color distributedon the inner and outer supraorbital, occipital, humeral, ulnar, spinal,femoral, and crural tracts. The inside of its mouth, as I have myselfnoted in northern Norway, is colored a raw-flesh red without spotsand the flanges externally are very pale yellow. The juvenal plu-mage much resembles that of the adult female in winter, but the paleedgings of the feathers of the upperparts are rather smaller and morebuffish and the buff of the underparts more yellowish. The chin ishuffish white. In the first winter the male is much like the adult fe-male in winter but may have the chin and throat tinged with buffishpink.Food.?^Like other pipits the species is mainly insectivorous. Exactdata are not extensive, but Jourdain (1938, vol. 1) mentions Diptera,Coleoptera, etc., small worms, and in winter also fresh-water mollusksand grass seeds. Haviland (1915) mentions especially mosquitoes,and indeed it is difficult to see how these pests could fail to figurelargely in the diet of any insectivorous bird on the tundra in summer.Behavior.?The carriage, gait, and general behavior are those of atypical pipit. It perches freely on bushes and fences or, where theyexist on telegraph wires and buildings and on trees. Miss MaudHaviland (1915) in Siberia found it a quarrelsome bird. In winterit is found in large parties and flocks, which scatter rather widelyover the feeding grounds.Voice.?The distinctive character of the call note has already beenmentioned. It is a comparatively full, quite musical, and ratherabrupt chiXj) (the "ii" sound to be pronounced like the French "u"),quite different from the thin, shrill notes of the other pipits. It is usedboth in flight or when flushed and while perched, and habitually bymigrants as well as on the breeding ground. A note used by breedingbirds which seems to be more definitely an alarm is a rather hoarse,shrill tsxoeerp., and from birds chasing one another I have heard amore rippling tsrvrrncp.The species has a pleasing song superior to that of most pipits. InLapland I found it to be built up of three main types of component,which, so far as such sounds can be represented crudely by words, mightbe rendered as twee (repeated about four times, shrill and prolonged),irrrrrrrrr (a little bubbling trill) , and tioizz-wizz-wizz-wizz (more sib-ilant and usually repeated several times, thus: twee-twee-tioee-twee^trrrrrrrrr., tioizz-wizz-wizz-wizz., timzz-wizz-wizz-wizz.^ twizz-wizz-wizz-ioizz. When the song is given from a post or bush it may consistof a single such sequence, but the fullest and best song is given in the air,as the bird rises and then parachutes down again with wings half spreadand tail fanned. It is then more prolonged, consisting of much thesame sequence of three main phrases or types of note repeated two or RED-THROATED PIPIT 51more times, with variations, and sometimes linked up with minorwarblings or twittering passages. While it is useful to attempt sucha necessarily rather prosaic analysis for descriptive and comparativepurposes, it conveys little of the general quality of the song. MissHaviland's description of the bird's "glorious parachute from theupper air to the accompaniment of a rain of melody" seems to thewriter rather highly colored, but the song of a good performer is musi-cal, lively, and pleasing, with some rich and rather canarylike notes,and these qualities tend to be enhanced for the hearer in the solitudeswhere the song is often heard.Field marks.?The red-throated pipit resembles the meadow pipit,previously described, much more than it does the American pipit;that is to say, it is a distinctly smaller and much more boldly markedbird, with broad black centers to the feathers of the upperparts andprominent black streaks on the breast and flanks. To an experiencedEuropean observer it is perhaps even more like the tree pipit {Anthustrivialis), but as that species and the meadow pipit are themselvesvery much alike this refinement need not concern us here. The red-throated pipit, then, is a rather small pipit with the characteristicsjust mentioned and in spring and summer is easily distinguished fromany other by the feature that gives it its name. It must be stressed,however, that this is neither a sharply defined bib nor of a strongred. It is a pale rusty red or rufous tint over the throat and face,generally distinctive enough at fairly close range but varying in itsintensity and least developed in some females. In autumn and winterthis coloring is lost or much reduced, and there is then little to dif-ferentiate it from the meadow pipit except that it is rather more boldlymarked above and that the ground color of the upperparts is awarmer brown without the tendency to grayish or greenish shadesthat so many, but not all, meadow pipits show. About the only reallyclear-cut difference is that the broad black streaking of the back ex-tends over the rump and upper tail coverts, whereas these parts arepractically uniform and unstreaked in the meadow pipit. Obviouslythis is a difficult character to be sure of in the field, though not im-possible if a really good and close view can be obtained. Fortunately,however, a far better field character is provided by the note, which isquite different from that of any of the other pipits, Anthus spinolettaincluded, and should at once attract the attention of anyone with afair ear for bird calls. It is described under "Voice."Fall and lointer.?In winter quarters the species shows a markedattachment to wet localities, such as damp or partially flooded grass-lands, borders of rivers and lakes, marshes, and wet cultivation, thoughit may be observed more rarely on dry and even arid ground, includ-ing coastal sand dunes and the borders of deserts. As a migrant it isgenerally gregarious in habits. 52 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMDISTRIBUTION "Breeding range.?North Scandinavia, north Finland, north Russia(Archangel government), Kolgnev, Waigatz and Novaya Zemlya,and across Siberia to Kamchatka, but not the Tchuktche Peninsula. 'Winter range.?Africa south to Lake Chad and Lagos in the west,but principally east Africa, south to Kenya and northern Tanganyika ; southern Asia, including northwest India, Assam, Burma, the Indo-Chinese countries, South China, and a few even to the Malay islands.Spring migration.?Leaves Kenya and Uganda from end of Marchto third week April (latest date April 19). Passage in Egypt fromlate March till at least April 18 and a few till late in the month (ex-ceptionally late date May 6), and at the mouth of the Yangtse, China,from beginning of April to mid-May. Arrival recorded: Vadso,northern Norway, June 2 ; Murman coast, May 20-27 ; Arctic Circle inYenisei Valley, June 6. Arrival on western shore of Taimyr Straiton April 18 (Pleske, 1928) presumably abnormal.Fall migration.?Departure recorded from Golchika at the mouthof the Yenisei, August 15. Passage at mouth of the Yangtse in Octo-ber. First arrivals noted: Egypt, October 23; Sudan (Darfur)October 25. Early date : Nairobi, Kenya, August 28.ANTHUS SPRAGUEI (Audubon)SPRAGUE'S PIPITHABITSSprague's pipit, or the Missouri skylark, was discovered by Audubonon the Upper Missouri and named for one of his companions, IsaacSprague, who shot the first specimen near Fort Union on June 19,1843. Audubon (1844) described and figured it near the end of hisgreat work, and remarks: "On several occasions my friend EdwardHarris sought for these birds on the ground, deceived by the sound oftheir music, appearing as if issuing from the prairies which theyconstantly inhabit; and after having travelled to many distant placeson the prairie, we at last looked upwards, and there saw several of thesebeautiful creatures singing in a continuous manner, and soaring atsuch an elevation, as to render them more or less difficult to discoverwith the eye, and at times some of them actually disappearing fromour sight, in the clear thin air of that country."Audubon's type specimen remained unique until Captain Blakiston,16 years later, found this species to be quite common on the plains ofSaskatchewan and published an account of it in The Ibis for 1863.One of his specimens and Audubon's type were deposited in the Smith-sonian Institution. These two specimens were the only ones known toDr. Coues (1874) until he discovered it while on the survey of the in- SPRAGUE'S PIPIT 53ternational boundary in 1873, of which he wrote at that time : "It isone of the most abundant birds of all the region along the forty-ninthparallel of latitude, from just west of the Pembina Mountains to asfar as the survey progressed this year?about four hundred miles ; Ihad no difficulty in taking as many specimens as I desired. They wereparticularly numerous at various points along the Souris or MouseKiver, where, during our marches or while we were encamped, theywere almost continually hovering about us."The 1931 Check-list gives its breeding range as "from west-centralSaskatchewan and southern Manitoba south to western Montana andNorth Dakota," but it has been reported in recent years as breeding insome localities outside of this range. In 1942, A. D. Henderson told methat Sprague's pipit was then "a rather scarce breeder at Belvedere,"Alberta. About the same time, Frank L. Farley, of Camrose, wroteto me : "This splendid aerial songster is a regular summer resident ofthe open prairies of central Alberta, and in recent years it has ap-peared in fair numbers in scattered parkland areas that have beencleared and brought under cultivation. It also delights in the open,short-grass plains that surround many of our alkaline lakes andsloughs. The most northerly point at which I have found this pipitwas on the south side of Lesser Slave Lake, approximately in latitude55? N., w^here a pair was undoubtedly nesting."Dr. Thomas S. Roberts (1932) states that Sprague's pipit "was oncea nesting bird in the southwestern and westcentral parts of Minne-sota, but the breaking up of the prairies probably caused it to leave thatregion many years ago." It is now probably restricted in that Stateto the Red River Valley, in the northern half of the western border.Dr. Roberts visited that valley in 1928 and says that "it was somethingof a surprise to find that Sprague's Pipit was one of the common birdsof the Valley, its tinkling song being heard high overhead everywhere."An interesting Michigan record is published by Trautman and VanTyne (1935), who collected a singing male in Crawford County onJune 26, 1935 : "On the three days it was observed the bird occupied aterritory about a quarter of a mile square of barren 'jack pine plain,'sparsely covered with coarse grasses, sweet fern, and a few small pineand oak saplings."This habitat, if I understand it correctly, seems to be quite differentfrom the normal haunts of the species, such as the open prairies andthe short-grass, rolling plains of Saskatchewan where we found it.Perhaps, with the gradual breaking up and cultivation, as well as theextensive burning, of the virgin prairies, which is rapidly reducingthe ranges of all the prairie birds, Sprague's pipit, like the uplandplover, is learning to adapt itself to the next-best type of country,such as the above and the parkland areas mentioned by Mr. Farley.Wlien I visited the prairies around Quill Lake, Saskatchewan, in 1915, 54 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMI found that the grassy plains had been thoroughly burned over toimprove them for grazing purposes ; the long-billed curlew, formerlyabundant there, had entirely disappeared, and the beautiful littlechestnut-collared longspurs were nearly gone. The prairies and theirfascinating bird life will soon be merely a delightful memory ! Sprague's pipit, therefore, is probably disappearing from most ofits former habitat. William Youngworth, of Sioux City, Iowa, tellsme that he spent a few days during the summer of 1939 near Cando,N. Dak., to learn something about this pipit. He says that, althoughDr. Koberts (1932) found it so common in the Ked River Valley afew years ago, it is not common any more. "One can drive now forhundreds of miles in North and South Dakota and never hear or seea pipit."Nesting.?Frank L. Farley says in his notes : "For years I tried tofind the nest of this bird by careful searching but was never success-ful. Later, however, I stumbled onto several nests by accident. Afew years ago, when sitting in my car on the large open flat on myfarm on Dried Meat Lake, my attention was directed to the songs ofseveral of the pipits that were soaring and singing some hundreds offeet above me. It looked up and, just as my eye met one of them, thebird instantly started its downward plunge to earth. On reaching apoint about 20 feet from the ground, its mate flew out to meet it. Mysuspicion that the female had just left its nest was correct as, ongoing over to where I had first seen it, I had no trouble in locatingthe nest with five eggs. It is quite probable that further investigationmight prove that this meeting of the birds in the air just above theirnest is a regular habit."Audubon (1844) was the first to discover the nest of Sprague'sMissouri lark, as he called it; the nest, he says, "is placed on theground and somewhat sunk in it. It is made entirely of fine gi^asses,circularly arranged, without any lining whatever."Dr. J. A. Allen (1874) seems to have been the next to find the nest,of which he says : "The only one found by me was arched over, andbeing placed in a tuft of rank grass was most thoroughly concealed.The bird would seem to be a close sitter, as in this case the femaleremained on the nest till I actually stepped over it, she brushingagainst my feet as she flew off."Several others have described the simple nests of Sprague's pipit,but the nests are not essentially different from those described above.The most elaborate account of the nesting life of this pipit is furnishedby R. D. Harris (1933), who found a nest near Winnipeg, Manitoba,on August 24, 1931, after the young had hatched. The nest wasplaced on the shoulder of a grass-grown roadway across a pasturefield, in a hollow made in muddy weather by passing cattle. Mr.Harris writes : SPRAGUE'S PIPIT 55In a cavity thus formed the nest was placed. Being six inches deep and sixinches in diameter, the cavity was much too large for the purpose. The birdshad met the situation, however, by filling in the unwanted space to a depth ofthree inches with dead grass, thus forming a kind of platform beside the nestwhich undoubtedly was found useful during nesting operations. The nest properwas composed of dried grasses two to six inches long. Unlike the filling, it waspacked and woven into a firm structure. The rim was placed level with thetilling three inches from the bottom, and the interior measured (after the younghad left) three inches in diameter and about one and one half inches deep. Itoccupied the position farthest from the entrance, with one side resting againstthe earth wall of the cavity. Overhead, the nest was shielded by a frail roofof dead grass anchored in the plants that stood at the edge of the depression.The entrance hole was barely more than two inches in diameter, and as thegrass filling was interioosed between it and the nest, the latter could be seenonly from a very low angle. This arrangement thus aided concealment.Eggs.?The set of eggs seems to consist generally of either four orfive ; rarely a set of six is laid ; reported sets of three are probably in-complete. The five eggs found by Dr. Allen (1874) "were ratherlong and pointed, being 0.90 of an inch in length by 0.60 in diameter.The ground color is dull grayish white, thickly and quite uniformlycovered with shall blotches of purplish brown, giving to the eggsa decidedly dark purplish tint. In color the eggs thus somewhatresemble those of AntJius ludovicianus.^^The Macouns (1909) quote Walter Kaine as saying that "they aresomething like eggs of the prairie horned lark but are smaller. Somehave a pale buff ground, others greyish-white ground, minutelyspeckled with buff and purplish grey. The eggs can be easily toldfrom small prairie horned lark's eggs by the fine dark brown lines atthe largest end of the eggs."There is a set of four eggs in the Thayer collection in Cambridge.These are ovate and only slightly glossy ; the ground color is grayishwhite ; and they are evenly sprinkled over the entire surface with smallspots and fine dots of pale olive-brown.The measurements of 44 eggs average 20.9 by 15.3 millimeters ; theeggs showing the four extremes measure 22.6 by 15.7, 21.0 by 16.7, 19.2by 14.0, and 20.5 by 13.5 millimeters.Young.?The incubation period for Sprague's pipit does not seemto have been learned. Mr. Harris ( 1933) found that the female did allthe brooding over the young ; probably she assumed all the duties ofincubation also. The young that he watched remained in the nestfor at least 10 or 11 days : The work of caring for the young in the nest appeared to be assumed entirelyby the female. The male was never observed to take part in it. Indeed, themale was detected near the nest only twice, and on both these occasions thefemale drove it away. The male had ceased its singing rather abruptly aboutthe beginning of August, and was not heard during the course of this nesting. OnAugust 24, the day the nest was found, it was seen with one well-grown youngbird, which was presumed to be of the first brood. From this it was concluded 56 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMthat, as in many other species, the male takes charge of the young after theyleave the nest while the female proceeds to build another nest and lay the nextset of eggs. The young birds of the first nest were noted with the male as lateas August 28, but they were doubtless independent of their parents by that time.The day after the nest was found, Mr. Harris set up his blind 21^ feetfrom the nest, and the next day he entered it for observation. Thebird was shy at first but soon became accustomed to the blind and even,the man in it. The birds were supposed to have hatched on or aboutAugust 20 or 21 and were watched off and on up to the time that theyleft the nest on the 31st. The results of his observations on the de-velopment of the young are given in too much detail to be includedhere ; only a few points can be mentioned. When the nest was found,on the 24th, he estimated that the young were 3 or 4 days old ; theireyelids were separated but incapable of movement ; they kept huddledtogether in the nest and the sense of fear had not developed ; a smallwingless grasshopper was fed to one of them.On the 26th, when the blind was occupied for the first time, one ofthe parents "kept arriving at the nest with food at an average rate ofonce every four and a half minutes throughout the three hours that Iremained in the blind. This bird was presumed to be the female. Theother one could be heard circling overhead, uttering the typical pipit ''sgui-gui-quick\ for fifteen minutes after I had entered the blind, there-after it was silent."On the 26th, when the young had been hatched 5 or 6 days, "downwas becoming scanty, and the juvenal plumage was quickly supplant-ing it. * * * The parent did not brood either on this occasionor at later times. * * * The parent maintained sanitation in thenest by carrying aAvay the faeces in its bill and probably dropping themwhile in flight. If, however, there were two sacs in the nest at once,one was eaten and the other was carried away. Small sacs were usuallyeaten." On August 27 and 28, "heavy rains fell, accompanied bystrong wind and low temperatures. When examined on the latter day,the birds appeared unharmed by the severe drenching they had re-ceived. Their eyes at this date were fully open." During the nexttwo days, the young became increasingly more active and restless ; andon the 31st the young left the nest. Three had already left whenMr. Harris entered the blind at 10 a. m. ; during the next two hours,the parent came without food several times, as if trying to entice theremaining two young to leave.F^inally, at 12.13, one of the two suddenly scrambled out of the nest andcrawled away into the grass, boring forward with its bill and picking its wayround the thick clumps. After progressing for about three feet, it squatted downto rest. Here the adult, with a grasshopper in its bill, came upon it and fedit. The young one then moved on for another two feet before resting again.At this point the remaining bird left the nest, and the two were now caughtand examined for the last time. * * * Tlie young birds were now very SPRAGUE'S PIPIT 57 active, and they seized in a flasti any opportunity to escape. Altliougli theyexerted a remarliable strength at times, tliey soon became exhausted and wereforced to rest frequently. They had as yet found no use for their wings, saveas additional limbs with which to balance themselves. Even when the birdsescaped from my hand and dropped to the ground, their wings hung limp attheir sides. Legs and feet were strong, but the birds could not yet standupright. * *Once the young were out of the nest, the adults changed their attitude com-pletely, reverting to their former secx-etive habits. They were now almostwholly silent. All flying necessary in the care of the young was done unob-trusively low over the grass. * * * Although the area round the nest wassearched diligently, it was not until September 10 tliat the young birds wereagain seen. On that date, two of them were Hushed from the grass about 100feet from the nest. Oue Hew for some 200 feet, and the other for 100 feet,before they returned to the grouud. A faint 'squick' was uttered by one oftliera. They had grown amazingly, and were comparable in size and actions totheir parents.Plumages.?Mr. Harris (1933) describes the natal down as "lightgrey in colour, long and dense ; on head, 3 to 10 mm. long, beginningin two rows close together on forehead but diverging gradually topass over tops of eyeballs; on occiput, in two small cliunps 10 mm.long, one on each side; about 10 mm. on scapular region, betweenelbow and wrist, and on spinal tract?two short clumps on cruraltract; one tuft on each side of caudal tract." At the time of nest-leaving, down was still "remaining only on sides of crown, on backand on secondary coverts." He gives a detailed account of the juvenalplumage at this age, to which the reader is referred. The followingbriefer description by Ridgway (1904) seems more suitable for thiswork : "Pileum broadly streaked with black and pale buff, the formerpredominating; scapulars and interscapulars black edged with buffand conspicuously margined terminally with white; rinnp similarlymarked, but terminal margins to feathers buff instead of white; wingsand tail as in adults, but whitish or pale buffy terminal margins tomiddle and greater wing-coverts broader and more sharply defined;under parts as in adults, but white of chin and throat more stronglycontrasted with the pale buff or chest, etc."A postjuvenal molt, involving the contour plumage but not the wingsor the tail, occurs in August and September. This produces a first-winter plumage practically indistinguishable from the winter plumageof the adult. The winter plumage of both young and old birds ismore strongly tinged with buff everywhere than is the spring plumage ; the breast, sides, and Hanks, especially, are strongly suffused withdeep, rich buff in fall, March specimens are generally in badlyworn plumage, and April birds show much fresh plumage about thehead and breast, indicating a partial prenuptial molt. The completepostnuptial molt occurs in August and September. The sexes arealike in all plumages.843290?50 5 5S BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL RTUSEUMFood.?^Very little seems to have been published on the food ofSprague's pipit. Dr, Gabrielson (1924) examined 11 stomachs andfound that 2 were filled with seeds of spurge and goatweed; 6 con-tained grasshoppers and crickets, 75 percent; and the remainder ofthe food consisted of Hymenoptera, mostly ants, Coleoptera, Hemip-tera, and caterpillars. Mrs. Nice (1931) mentions weevils, stink bugs,and false chinch bugs.During a period of 8 hours Mr. Harris (1933) saw the parent birdmake 91 trips to the nest with food for the young. In 21 cases thefood was not identified; of the remaining 70 trips, 7 were made withcrickets, 4 with moths, and 59 with grasshoppers. "Crickets andmoths were brought one at a time, while grasshoppers were broughtat an average rate of 1.58 per trip."Behavior.?Sprague's pipit is a fascinating but very elusive bird.We overlooked it in North Dakota and during our first season inSaskatchew^an, probably because we did not Iniow where and howto look for it or realize the difficulty of seeing or even hearing it.But, on the plains of southwestern Saskatchewan, thanks to Dr.Bishop's keen ears, we found it really quite common in 1906, thoughmore frequently heard than seen. The males spend much of theirtime way up in the sky, almost out of sight; it is only occasionallythat one can be seen, as a mere speck against some white cloud ; againstthe blue sky it is almost invisible. When it comes down to the ground,as it does at long intervals, it is very shy and difficult to approach,flying off to a great distance in long, bounding, erratic flights. Wesucceeded in collecting very few birds, although we spent considerabletime in fruitless chasing. I secured only one, shot on the wing atlong range.Dr. Koberts (1932) says of its behavior:Sprague's Pipit is a bird that may easily be overlooked. It should be lookedfor high overhead rather thau on the ground. In the nesting-season the charac-teristic song of the male, floating down from far up in the sky, is the surestindication of its presence. The performer may not be easy to locate, but thesong can belong to no other bird. On the groimd it disappears completely inthe prairie grass, walks or runs nimbly away without showing itself and, ifflushed, flies quickly off, appearing much like a Vesper Sparrow. When itsprings into the air and mounts higher and higher in ascending circles to deliverits nuptial song and then plunges directly to earth again, it may be mistakenfor a Horned Lark by the casual observer. The performance is just the same,but the bird usually goes higher, stays up much longer, and the song is different.A good glass may show the large amount of white in the tail and the absenceof black markings on the head and breast. If a glimpse be had of the birdafter it alights on the ground, it will be seen to walk in the manner of theHorned Lark but with a more dainty, lighter stop. The ordinary flight of thePipit is sharply undulatory and erratic, a series of dips and upwardsprings, now this way and now that. When startled from the grass it goesoff in this manner and at the end of the flight turns suddenly backward in its SPRAGUE'S PIPIT 59 course aud drops abruptly to concealmout again. It rarely, if ever, alights excepton the ground. Its behavior in these respects is characteristic enough to dis-tinguish it among the other prairie birds with which it is associated.As to its behavior about the nest, Mr. Harris (1933) discoveredthat?the female used a definite route in entering and in departing from the nest. Aftersecuring food from an adjoining patch of open grass, it would fly low over theground directly to about six feet north-west of the nest. Here it would alightand walk along a curving path to enter the nest finally from the south. Onleaving, the bird would stand for a few moments on the edge of the depressionto watch and listen. Then it would move directly west for about two feet?cross-ing its path of approach?and again pause at another "listening post." Fromhere it would mount into the air and fly off in search of more food. The pathused was always the same, and once known, it could just be discerned because ofits slightly trodden appearance. Rarely did the bird depart from the nestwithout first standing for several minutes at both "listening posts." At thesetimes, the bird's ear coverts were frequently seen to be raised slightly, showinghow keenly alert it was. Preening occasionally took place at these intervals also.Dr. Coues (1874) writes:In August, after all the broods are on the wing, and through September, Ihave seen it in considerable flocks ; and often, when riding along the prairie road,numbers would fly up at my approach, from the ruts ahead, where they werefeeding, to settle again at a little distance further on. These wheel tracks,where the grass was worn away, seemed to be their favorite resorts, where theycould run with the greatest ease, and perhaps gather food less easily discoveredin the thirk grass. They tripped along the tracks with swift aud dainty steps,never hopping, and continually vibrating the tail, just like our common Titlark.They were usually associated at such times with numbers of Chestnut-coloredLark-buntings, which seemed to fancy the same places, and with a few Baird'sBuntings. These were the only circumstances under which the Larks coifldbe procured without the great quickness and dexterity required to take themon the vnng ; for the moment they alight in the grass of the prairie, be it scantyor only a few inches high, they are lost to view, their speckled-gray colorsblending completely with the herbage.Voice.?The marvelous flight song of Spragiie's pipit has been re-ferred to above. It is one of its most striking characteristics and quitedifferent from the flight songs of other birds. Aretas A. Saunderssays, in part, in his notes : "As it flies around, its flight rises and falls.Each time it rises the bird sings; when it falls, he is silent. So thesong is heard at intervals as the bird flies about its circle. The songconsists of a series of 2-note phrases, each phrase with the first note ofthe two higher in pitch and each phrase beginning on a little lowerpitch than the previous one. I once measured the drop in pitch of aparticular singer and found that it was half a tone less than an octaveand that the bird sang seven 2-note phrases. But, knowing the amountof variation that exists in the songs of most species, I would not be surethat this song was typical. The song is clear, sweet, and musical but,perhaps because of the distance, sounds rather weak. In some locali- 60 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMties choruses of these birds may be heard and, to the lover of birdmusic, the effect is exceedingly pleasing."Dr. Roberts (1932) gives a very good description of the song, quotedfrom some notes of H. W. Gleason, as follows : At first could be heard three or four sharp "chips" with very decided intervals,followed by a musical repetition of blended, very high-pitched notes soundinglike the jingling of a set of tiny sleigh-bells. The accented notes came in regularbeats or throbs and gradually diminished in volume until lost to the ear, re-sembling a vei-y high, fine Veery song but lacking the inflection and given a littleslower. The birds being at such a great elevation while singing made it diffi-cult to determine the coordination of the song and flight. It seemed, however, tobegin during a short sail on set wings, followed by an ascent in short flights likethe Horned Lark, during which came the throbbing part of the song. During thesail the tail was spread and the wings upcurved like those of a singing Bobolink.The song was repeated at short intervals for a period of 15 to 25 minutes as thebird drifted around in wide circles. At the end it descended like a plummet,spreading its wings when almost to the ground and alighting like a Horned Lark.With the aid of a crude triangle and an assistant several rough estimates weremade of the height at which the bird sang, which varied from 210 to 325 feet,with a minimum record of 110 feet during a misty rain. It would appear thatthe average singing height is about 300 feet.Dr. Allen (1874) says: "Their notes resemble the syllables jingle^jingle^ jingle^ jingle^ rapidly repeated, beginning loud and high, anddecreasing rapidly in strength and loudness, and are remarkable fortheir clear metallic ring, their song reminding one of the jinglingsound of a light chain when slowly let fall into a coil."Dr. Cones (1874) gives the following appreciation of the song: "Noother bird music heard in our land compares with the wonderfulstrains of this songster ; there is something not of earth in the melody,coming from above, yet from no visible source. The notes are simplyindescribable; but once heard they can never be forgotten. Theirvolume and penetration are truly wonderful ; they are neither loud norstrong, yet the whole air seems filled with the tender strains, and de-lightful melody continues long unbroken. The song is only heard for abrief period in the summer, ceasing when the inspiration of the loveseason is over, and it is only uttered when the birds are soaring."Ernest Thompson Seton (1891) writes:On May 14, I watched a skylark that was singing on high with great devotion ;he had trilled his refrain from beginning to end at least twenty times when itoccurred to me to time and count his songs. The whole of each trilling occupied15 seconds, and after I began to count he repeated it from beginning to end 82times ; .lust as he should have entered on the eighty-third, his wings closed, histail went up, and down he fell headlong. * * * This singer had serenadedme for about an hour, and I do not think he ranked above his fellows in stayingpower. * * * When the skylark feels the impulse to sing, he rises from thebare prairie ridge with a peculiar bounding flight, like that of the pipit ; up, insilence, higher and higher he goes, up, up, 100, 200, 300, 500 feet ; then, feelinghis spirits correspondingly elevated, he spreads his wings and tail and pours SPRAGUE'S PIPIT 61forth the strains that are making him famous. * * * Once only have Iobserved this species singing his full song on the ground.Singing on the ground is evidently seldom indulged in by Sprague'spipit ; most observers have never heard it do so ; but Trautman and VanTyne (1935) "on several occasions" in Michigan heard this pipit "singfrom the ground and once" they "watched it sing from the top of asmall telephone pole. These songs, while identical in pattern with theflight songs, were much less loud and clear."Field marks.?Sprague's pipit is not easily recognized. Its shynessand its secretive habits when on the ground make it difficult toapproach. It has no distinctive and conspicuous field marks exceptits two pairs of white outer tail feathers, which show only in flightand are shared by some other birds with which it is likely to beassociated. It is often associated with vesper sparrows, which haveabout the same amount of white in the tail; the pipit is a slenderbird with a sharp-pointed bill, and it w^alks or runs; whereas thesparrow is a stockier bird, has a short, conical bill, and it hops insteadof walking. The horned lark, one of its frequent companions, alsowalks, but it has less white in the tail, is not so slender, and has con-spicuous black markings on head and breast. The horned lark hasa somewhat similar flight song, but, with a good glass, its head andbreast markings can be seen. Sprague's pipit closely resembles theAmerican pipit in form and behavior, but it is lighter in colorationand more buffy, less grayish.Fall.?After the breeding season is over and the young are strongon the wing, these pipits gather into flocks, sometimes of immensesize, mingled with horned larks and longspurs, and drift slowly south-ward to spend the winter close to our southern border, or farthersouth in Mexico. DISTRIBUTIONRange.?Interior of North America from southern Canada to south-ern Mexico.Breeding range.?Sprague's pipit breeds north to central Alberta(Edmonton and Athabaska) ; central Saskatchewan (Prince Albertand Quill Lake) ; and southern Manitoba (Aweme, Shoal Lake, andHillside Beach on southern Lake Winnipeg). East to southeasternManitoba (Hillside Beach and Winnipeg) ; and western Minnesota(Muskoda and northern Wilkin County). South to central westernMinnesota (northern Wilkin County) ; northern South Dakota (GrandRiver xigency, northern Stanley County, and Harding County) ;and central Montana (Lewistown and the Belt Mountains). Westto western Montana east of the Rocky Mountains (Belt Mountains,Great Falls, Teton County, and Browning) ; and west-central Al- 62 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL IMUSEUMberta (Ked Deer River east of Banff National Park and Edmonton )r.Winter range.?Sprague's pipit winters north to central Texas ( SanAJigelo, Dallas, and Corsicana) ; southern Louisiana (Lobdell andMandeville) ; and southern Mississippi (Biloxi). South to southernMississippi (Biloxi) ; southern Louisiana (New Orleans, AveryIsland, and Jennings) ; southern Texas (Galveston, Port O'Connor,Corpus Christi, and Brownsville) ; through eastern Mexico to Vera-cruz (Veracruz), Puebla (Puebla), and Guerrero (Iguala). Westto Guerrero (Iguala) ; Michoacan (La Salada) ; and central Texas(Laredo and San Angelo). In fall and winter it has also oc-curred near Charleston, S. C. ; Cumberland Island, Ga. ; and LakeMiccosukee, Lukens, Lake Tohopekaliga, and Charlotte Harbor, Fla.Migration.?Late dates of spring departure are: Louisiana?NewOrleans, April 19. Texas?Gainesville, April 14. Kansas?Stock-ton, April 26. Nebraska?Lincoln, April 26.Early dates of spring arrival are: Oklahoma?Caddo, February18. Missouri?Kansas City, March 20. South Dakota?Vermillion,April 14. North Dakota?Jamestown, April 29. Minnesota?Mus-koda, April 27. Manitoba?Aweme, April 8. Wyoming?Laramie,April 17. Montana?Great Falls, April 23. Saskatchewan?East-end, April 7. Alberta?Alliance, May 2.Late dates of fall departure are: Alberta?Edmonton, September30. Saskatchewan?Eastend, October 10. Montana?Fallon, Sep-tember 19. Wyoming?Laramie, September 20. Manitoba?Mar-garet, October 20. South Dakota?Forestburg, October 30.Early dates of fall arrival are : Nebraska?Monroe Canyon, SiouxCounty, October 1. Oklahoma?Kenton, October 2. Texas?HighIsland, October 31. Louisiana?^Lobdell, November 5.Casual records.?On April 4, 1905, a specimen was collected at FortLowell, Ariz. ; it was recorded in Yellowstone Park, Wyo., on July 10,1929. One was present June 21 to 26, 1935, near Lovells, CrawfordCounty, Mich., and was collected on the latter date.Egg dates.?North Dakota : 3 records, June 7 to 30. Saskatchewan : 5 records. May 19 to June 28.Family BOMBYCILLIDAE : WaxwingsBOMBYCILLA GARRULUS PALLIDICEPS ReichenowBOHEMIAN V/AXWINGHABITSThe Bohemian waxwing is an elegant bird, a well-dressed gentlemanin feathers, a Beau Brummel among birds. He is not so gaudilydressed in gay colors as many other birds are, but his sleek and silkyplumage, in softly blended, harmonious shades of modest grays and BOHEMIAN WAXWING 63browns, clothes his shapely form in a most pleasing combination ofcolors; and the band of white across the wings, the yellow-tipped tail,the chestnut under tail coverts, the black chin, and the red wax tipsrather accent than spoil the harmony of the whole ; and, above all, thejaunty crest gives the final touch of aristocracy. He is a gentleman inappearance and a courteous gentleman in behavior, as all who haveseen him in association with his fellows, or with other species, willattest.To most of us, these Bohemians are birds of mystery; we neverknow when or where we may see these roving bands of gypsies. Theycome and they go, we know not whence or whither, in the never-endingsearch for a bounteous food supply on which to gorge themselves. Oninfrequent occasions, far too infrequent in New England, from thevast timbered wilderness of northern Canada small groups, or immenseflocks, of these fascinating and erratic wanderers swoop down uponus in winter in the Northern States, and more regularly in the RockyMoimtain regions. According to Dr. Cones (1874), "Prof. Bairdmentions that Mr. Drexler saw 'millions' on Powder River, in flocks 'rivalling in extent those of the Wild Pigeon.' " Whence come thesevast hordes ? It is only within comparatively recent years that a fewsmall breeding colonies have been discovered in different parts ofnorthern Canada. But the total of all these colonies will not beginto account for the enormous numbers of these waxwings that some-times flock into the States in winter. There must be many more ofthese, or larger, colonies scattered through the broad expanse ofconiferous forests, dotted with muskegs, that extend from Hudson Bayalmost to the Pacific slope, most of which region still remains un-explored. A 30-mile trip that I made into the wilderness north ofPrince Albert gave me a glimpse of what this countiy must be like.Perhaps the opening of the Alcan Highwa}^ may throw some light onthe subject.Sir John Richardson (Swainson and Richardson, 1831) writes:This elegant bird has only lately been detected in America, having been dis-covered, in the spring of 1826, near the soiirces of the Athabasca, or Elk river,by Mr. Drummontl, and by myself the same season at Great Bear Lake, in lati-tude 65?. * * * It appears in flocks at Great Bear Lake about the 24th ofMay, when the spring thaw has exposed the berries of the alpine arbutus, marshvaccinium, &c., that have been frozen and covered during the winter. It staysonly for a few days, and none of the Indians of that quarter with whom I con-versed had seen its nests, * * * i observed a large flock, consisting of atleast three or four hundred individuals, on the banks of the Saskatchewan, atCarlton House, early in May, 1827. They alighted in a grove of poplars, settlingall in one or two trees, and making a loud twittering noise. They stayed onlyabout an hour in the morning, and were too shy to allow me to approach withingunshot.This species is circumpolar in its distribution, and our bird was, fora long time, supposed to be identical with the European bird, but it has 64 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM since been shown to be subspecifically distinct from the latter, B. g.gai^'ulus, as well as from a closely related Asiatic race, B. g. central-asiae. Dr. Harry C. Oberholser ( 1917) has pointed out the differencesbetween the forms. He says that our bird is similar to the Asiaticbird, "but decidely more grayish (less cinnamomeous) both above andbelow". And he adds : "The North American representatives of thisspecies constitute a well-marked and readily recognizable subspecieswhich differs from Bombycilia garrula garrula in its paler, very muchmore grayish (less vinaceous or cinnamomeous) , coloration both aboveand below."The type race has occurred as a straggler in Greenland.The 1931 Check-list implies that the Bohemian waxwing nests whollynorth of the United States, but Dr. Walter P. Taylor (1918) has pub-lished several records that indicate that it "occurs, probably rarely,as a breeding bird within our borders in the coniferous forests of thenorthern Rocky Mountain region, in a district embracing north-western Montana, northern Idaho, and northern Washington."Harry S. Swarth (1922) found a colony of these waxwings breed-ing in the lowlands near the upper part of the Stikine Eiver, innorthern British Columbia. Just why they were restricted to thislimited area, when conditions were apparently equally favorable far-ther down the river, was not apparent. The terrace or plateau wherehe found them "extends westward a mile or more, is quite level, andbut sparsely covered with forest growth. A year or more before ourvisit it had been swept by fire and a large part of the timber destroyed.As we saw the place there was very little underbrush of any sort,a great many dead trees, mostly pines with some poplars, and a scat-tering growth of live trees that had escaped destruction. The coni-fers were the lodgepole pine {Pinus contorta), and were all smalltrees."Fifty miles or so down the river, at Doch-da-on Creek, he foundthe waxwings breeding under slightly different conditions. "Thistract was composed mainly of balsam firs of rather large size, withan admixture of cottonwoods and poplars, and with but little under-brush." These woods, though fairly open, were much denser thanthose mentioned above.Courtship.?The following short statement by Mr. Swarth (1922)is all that I can find on this subject : "On one occasion one of a pairof waxwings, presumably the male, was seen strutting about and ex-hibiting his beauties to his mate. Considering that the two sexes arealike in every respect, it seemed rather a superfluous performance, butat any rate the one bird was hopping excitedly about from branch tobranch, while the other sat still and looked on. The active performerkept the tail partly spread, wings drooping, and crest raised, andthe whole body was held stiffly upright. After several minutes the BOHEMIAN WAXWING 65other seemed to tire of the performance and flew away, followed atonce by its mate."Nesting.?Many years ago, Professor Baird (1865) made the fol-lowing announcement as to our first knowledge of the nesting habitsof this species : For many years autlientic eggs of the Bohemian Chatterer were greatly soughtafter, but it was not until 1856 that they were brought to the notice of thescientific world, when the late Mr. H. Wolley discovered them in Lapland.Early duplicates from his collection were sold at five guineas each, and althougha good many have since been obtained, they are yet considered as great prizes.A nest, with its eggs, of those collected by Mr. Wolley, has been presented tothe [Smithsonian] Institution by Mr. Alfred Newton, The only instances onrecord of their discovery in America are of a nest and one egg by Mr. Kennicott,on the Yukon, in 1861, and a nest and single egg on the Anderson River, by Mr.MacFarlane, both of which, with the female parents, are in the possession ofthe Institution.Mr. Swarth (1922), in his excellent account of the breeding colonyon the upper Stikine, mentions several other breeding stations thathave been discovered since the above-mentioned early records andprior to his own discovery, and gives much interesting informationabout other phases of the life history of these little-known birds,which will be taken up later. But first I want to include some con-tributed notes on more recent nestings in some other localities.Frank L. Farley writes to me : "Bohemian waxwings are apparentlyas erratic in their selection of nesting territory as they are in theirannual wanderings to and from their summer homes. During myearly visits to the muskeg country, lying between the Athabaska andthe Pembina Rivers, about 100 miles northwest of Edmonton, Alberta,I was not successful in locating nesting pairs, although occasionalbirds were seen, and the country seemed suitable for such purposes.On such occasions the birds all disappeared before our departure forhome. Wlien I visited the region in May 1938, waxwings appeareddaily in fair numbers, and several pairs were found nesting towardthe end of the month about our camp. On May 28 two nests werelocated in tall jack pines. One of these contained four and the othersix eggs. The nesting trees were about 100 feet apart and were closeto an old logging trail that traverses the country between the tworivers. The nests were built on horizontal branches close to themain trunk and about 35 feet from the ground. The nests weremade of dry pine and tamarack twigs, intermixed with coarse grassesand tree mosses. The lining is of finer grass, bits of soft black moss,and a fluffy white down, the product of some native plant. The ex-terior is more or less covered with moss and lichens. The diameteroutside is G inches and the depth 4 inches. The cup is nearly 3 inchesdeep and the same in width."A. D. Henderson contributes the following account : "This beautiful 66 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMbird is a rather common breeder in the muskeg and sand-hill countrynorth of Fort Assiniboine, with its growth of spruce, tamarack, andpines, and its abundant crop of blueberries, cranberries, and kinni-kinnick berries. It nests in spruce and tamarack trees in the muskegs,usually at low elevations. It also nests in pines growing on the highgi'ound. The nests are placed near the top of the tall, slim pines andare so difficult to secure that it is necessary quite often to lash two ormore pines together, or pull the tree with the nest into a larger pinenearby. Three nests taken in pines were at heights of 40, 50, and 60feet. The highest nest of 11 taken in muskegs was 18 feet up and thelowest 4 feet ; the rest ranged from 8 to 16 feet up. The birds also nestin the wide-branching pines growing in open situations, and in thiscase the nests are saddled on the horizontal limbs well out from thetrunk."The nests are rather flat, and made on the outside of tamarack orspruce twigs, grass, usnea moss, and cocoons ; they are lined with a lit-tle fine grass, usnea moss, cocoons, and plant cotton, or with tamarackleaves, feathers, or pine needles ; some of this lining is, of course, notpresent in every nest."Some pairs breed by themselves, but quite often two or more nestsare in the same muskeg at no great distance from each other. Onone trip to the muskegs, the birds were entirely absent from theirusual haunts. I attribute this to lack of the usual crop of berries, theblossoms evidently being caught in a hard frost the previous season.These birds are also great flycatchers, and, in another season which wasvery cold and windy and little insect life available, they were notbreeding at the usual time and only one nest was found. Few nestsare found as compared with the numbers of birds present. They donot breed in the poplar woods around Belvedere."Wilson C. Hanna has sent me the data for two sets of eggs of theBohemian waxwing, taken by him at Atlin Lake, British Columbia, onJuly 14, 1931. Both nests were in balsam firs, 14 feet above theground ; one was at a fork in the main trunk of a small fir, and the otherwas on a downward-sloping limb against the trunk. The materialsused in the construction of the nests were not different from thosementioned above. The larger nest measured 6 by 7 inches in outsidediameter by 2.7 inches in depth; the inner cavity was 3.25 inches indiameter and 1.5 inches deep. (PI. 7.)Mr. Swarth's (1922) eight Telegraph Creek nests were all in lodge-pole pines; one nest was 25 feet, one 10, and one 15 feet from theground ; the others were only 6 or 7 feet up. All the nests but onewere on small limbs against the trunk; this nest, found June 24, "was ina lodgepole pine of larger size than most in this locality, in the fork ofone of the larger branches, about three feet from the trunk. Bothbirds were building here at 1 p. m. At 4 p. m. both birds were seen BOHEMIAN WAXWING 67hard at work carrying the nest material elsewhere. When we ceasedwatching there was very little of the nest left. On July 5 we hap-pened to pass this place and were surprised to see the nest intact and abird upon it. It yielded a set of five eggs." Of the first nest he says : "Found June 19, nest just begun; June 21, nest completed; June 22,contained one egg ; June 24, 3 eggs ; June 25, 4 eggs ; June 26, five eggs,set taken." Of the nests in general, he says ; The building material was always the same, an outer structure of dead twigs,lending support to a mass of black moss and wbite plant fiber. Dry grass wasused as a lining sometimes but not always. The black moss was the one materialthat was used in the gi'eatest amount, and it appears in all but one of the nests.This moss grows abundantly on the conifers of the region, depending from thebranches in great masses, like coarse hair. The white plant fiber that is also soconspicuous in the nests is from the seed pod of the previous year's dead "fireweed"(Epilohium angustifolium) . Thei'e was one additional feature in which the nests were all alike, somethingthat could not be preserved. Invariably there was a mass of stuff depending sixor eight inches below the nest proper, so loosely attached as to seem on the vergeof dropping away. This stuff was mostly the moss and the white plant fiber;usually additional tufts of these materials were adhering to nearby branches.Of the two nests found at Doch-da-on Creek, 50 miles down theriver, he says : "Each was near the top of a fir, about twenty-five feetfrom the ground, supported upon a branch and by surrounding twigs,and close to the trunk. On July 15 one of these nests was taken, to-gether with a set of three eggs. The other contained two eggs, andwas left undisturbed. No more eggs were laid in this nest, the femalebeing still incubating the two eggs some days later."Several other accounts of the nesting of the Bohemian waxwing havebeen published, but they are not sufficiently different from some ofthose mentioned above to warrant quoting them here. Some of themare quoted in Mr. Swarth's (1922) paper, to which the reader isreferred.Eggs.?Mr. Swarth (1922) found one of these waxwings incubatingon two eggs for "some days," but usually the set consists of four to six.The eggs are almost exactly like those of the cedar waxwing but de-cidedly larger. Mr. Swarth describes his eggs as follows : "In color,three of the sets are much alike, a pale glaucous blue, close to Ridg-way's 'pale dull glaucous-blue,' but more washed out. This groundcolor is marked rather profusely with blackish dots and with a fewfine, irregular lines, the dots mostly quite small and occurring overnearly the entire egg, though less numerously at the smaller end thanelsewhere. There are also obscure underlying spots of bluish, butfaintly seen. The fourth set (No. 1821) is more olivaceous, the groundcolor close to Ridgway's 'mineral gray.' The spots are fewer in num-ber than in the other sets, larger, and more sharply defined."The measurements of 50 eggs average 24.6 by 17.4 millimeters ; the 68 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMeggs showing the four extremes measure 27.5 by 19.2, 27.3 by 19.4, 21.5by 17.7, and 22.9 by 15.2 millimeters.Young.?Apparently no one who has found a nest of the Bohemianwaxwing has been willing to allow the eggs to hatch ; hence we knownothing about the period of incubation or about the development andcare of the young. The eggs were considered worth more than theinformation. The only hint we have as to the altricial period is thatMr. Swarth found five young in a nest on June 24, which he thoughtwere not more than two or three days old; on July 5, 11 days later,these young birds fluttered from the nest when disturbed ; they mightnot have left the nest voluntarily for two or three days.Plumages.?Mr. Swarth (1922) shows a colored plate of the youngbirds, drawn by Maj. Allan Brooks, which gives a better idea of themthan any description ; the brood consisted of four males and one female.He gives the following interesting description of them : These young waxwings pi'esented a most striking appearance in life, for to mysurprise they exhibited all the characteristic markings of the adult. Not onlythat, but the yellow tip to the tail was much brighter, more of an orange yellow,than it is in any of the old birds. The wax tips to the secondaries were present ineach of the four males but not in the female. Two of the birds had four suchtips, one had five, and one had seven, as many as are seen in any of the adults.These wax tips are as large as in many old birds. * ? *The four young males are very much alike in color and markings, the onlydifferences in appearance being those arising from the slight difference in stageof development. The marginal primary markings are present, sharply defined,and in each case bright yellow. In many adults these markings are white. Inthe young males the terminal tail band is orange-buff, the primary tips, lightorange-yellow. In the brightest adult at hand the tail band is light cadmium, theprimary tips, lemon chrome. In the young female the tail band is somewhatpaler than in the males, though still more orange than in any adult. The pri-mary tips are but slightly tinged with yellow.A still more remarkable feature in the young males is the fact that in eachone the rectrices are distinctly tipped with red. These red tips are not fullydeveloped sealing-waxlike scales such as are on the secondaries, but are producedby red coloration of the terminal portion (4 or 5 mm. in length) of the feathershaft of the rectrix. * * *While the young birds possess all the markings of the adults, they are appreci-ably different in general body color. They have a somewhat streaked appearance,though not as much so as in the young cedar waxwing; the whole body is of aduller, darker gray than in the adult, and the young bird has none of the vinouscoloring about the head that is seen in the adult. The crest is present but onlyslightly developed. The young has a dull black line from the nostril to theeye and posteriorly on the head, in resemblance to that on the adult, but in ourspecimens of young there is just an indication of the black throat. This may bedue to the fact that in these birds the feathers of the chin and upper throat arebut partly developed.In full Juvenal plumage, according to Ridgway (1904), the malarregion, chin, and throat are dull white, the chin is margined on eachside by a dusky streak, and the under tail coverts are vinaceous- BOHEMIAN WAXWING 69cinnamon; and Dwight's (1900) description is substantially the same.The latter says that the first winter plumage is acquired by a partialpostjuvenal molt, "which involves the body plumage and wing coverts,but not the remiges nor rectrices." He describes it as "everywhererich drab, grayer below and on rump, fawn-color about the head. Alarge black chin patch, the black extending to lores and forehead andbordered everywhere by rich walnut-brown."There seems to be no prenuptial molt in the Bohemian waxwing.One-year-old birds and adults have a complete postnuptial molt,either very late in summer (last of August) or in fall ; E. S. Cameron(1908) says this occurs in October; and Witherby's Handbook (1919)says October to November. Dwight (1900) says that young birdsbecome indistinguishable from adults after their first postnuptialmolt, adults being somewhat grayer than first-winter birds, with moreextensive white markings in the wings and brighter yellow tail bandand primary tips.Except for the smaller and duller black throat, there seem to be noconstant sexual differences in plumage, but there is much individualvariation in both sexes. The coloration of the female is said to beduller than that of the male, but the most brightly colored bird in theseries examined by Mr. Swarth (1922) is a female. "In size (butnot in number) of wax wing tips, in 'return margins' of primaries,in yellow on primaries, and in size of white spots on secondaries, it issuperior to any of the males. In this bird the Avax secondary tipsare 7 mm. in length, a size attained by only one or two males." Thefemale parent of the brood of young is a highly plumaged bird. "Ithas six secondaries of one wing, five of the other, with wax tips, theprimary margins are bright yellow, the tail is broadly tipped withyellow, and there is a faint suggestion of red in one or two of the tailfeathers."The presence of wax tips, or their number, did not seem to be de-pendent on age, sex, or season; they were almost evenly dividedbetween the sexes; out of 45 specimens examined, just 1 (a female)had no trace of a wax tip ; in a series of 22 males, 2 had 3 tips, 8 had 6,and 1 had 7 tips, the others being intermediate in this respect; in aseries of 16 females, 1 had no tips, 1 had traces of 2, 2 had 3 tips, 7had 6, and 1 had 7 tips, the others being intermediate.Food.?On its northern breeding grounds, in summer, the Bohemianwaxwing is largely insectivorous, though even there its presence seemsto be governed to some extent by the available supply of berries. Ithas sometimes been referred to as an expert flycatcher ; it must be verysmart at this, for it has been known to capture such swift and strongfliers as dragonflies. Mr. Swarth (1922) writes:Waxwings were seeu feeding on insects and also on berries and other vege-table matter. About Telegraph Creek, the flrst week in June, they were usually 70 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM seen perched on bare branches and making short sallies after flying insects in trueflycatcher style. Early in July a berry-bearing shrub (Shepherdia canadensis)of general distribution in the region came into bearing, and the waxwings, aswell as other species of birds, fed upon the berries of this plant to a great extent.The young waxwings we took from the nest had also been fed upon these sameberries.Dr. Thomas S. Roberts (1932) says: "The Bohemian Waxwing isfond of tree sap, especially that of the sugar maple, and when the sapbegins to run in early spring, a leaking tree-trunk will attract a wholeflock. * * * With the warm days of early spring, it becomes a 'flycatcher' and may be seen sallying out from the tree-tops in pursuit ofthe tiny flies and beetles that fill the upper air even before the snow andice have disappeared. The stomach at such times will be found packedwith many hundreds of these minute insects." He gives a long list ofberries and fruits eaten, and adds that, in times of stress, it will feedon "rotten apples and cranberries gleaned from garbage cans anddumping places in the rear of residences and stores."Mr. Farley sends me the following note : "I am told by trappers inthe mountains that, in summer, these birds begin to eat the wild rasp-berries just as soon as they show any signs of ripening, and from thattime on, until the berries fall off, the bills and the faces of the birds aresmeared with the red juices. During their stay in central Alberta,beginning late in October, their chief food in the country consists ofchokecherries, hawthorn, and rose hips, all of which remain on thetrees late. As long as these fruits can be had the birds will remain. Inthe towns and cities, where the shrub Cotoneaster is now grown com-monly, the Bohemians feed on the blue berries produced on this bushand prefer them to any other food. When feeding on these, their facesand bills are always colored by the blue juices."Although there is a long list of berries and fruits on which thesewaxwings feed, the most important two are the berries of the mountain-ash and those of the cedars or junipers ; at least these are the foods mostoften mentioned, and they are probably decided favorites. The moun-tain-ash berries are so popular with these birds that they will flock to atree in fruit day after day until it is entirely stripped of its berriesand until all those that have fallen to the ground have been picked up.A mountain-ash tree in fruit is sure to attract all the waxwings in thevicinity, provided it has not been stripped of its fruit by starlings,robins, or other birds before the waxwings arrive, for it is one of themost popular of berry-bearing trees or shrubs.The cedars are more widely distributed and there are many more ofthem ; they provide an abundant food supply for the waxwings. Mr.Cameron (1908) says that, in Montana in winter, these waxwings sub-sist "entirely on cedar berries, which have a sweet taste and tinge theexcrement of the birds red, so that familiar roosting places in the highpines are infallibly marked by the red-stained snow beneath." BOHEMIAN WAXWING 71Other vegetable foods of the Bohemian waxwing include highbushcranberries, buli'aloberries, bearberries, blueberries, wolfberries, snow-berries, hackberries, barberries, and the berries of the black alder,American holly, madrona, buckthorn, ivy, asparagus, smilax, kinni-kinnick, bittersweet vine, mistletoe, peppertree, dogwood, sumac,laurel, woodbine and the matrimony vine, and doubtless other berries.They also eat frozen apples that hang on the trees or fall to the ground,Russian olives and wild olives, rose hips, wild grapes, persimmons, andfigs. They will come to the feeding stations for raisins, dried currants,or minced prunes, and probably for other kinds of dried fruits orberries. They are said to eat the buds of poplars and the seeds ofboxelder, black birch, locust, and hollyhock.Bohemian waxwings are voracious, almost gluttonous feeders ; theygorge themselves with all the food their crops will hold, then flydown and take a drink of water or snow and return to the feast ; whenfilled to capacity they fly up into a tree and sit quietly to digest theirfood, so as to be ready to fly down and eat more. They swoop downin flocks onto the berry-bearing trees or shrubs and keep almost con-stantly at it until the supply is exhausted.Dr. Harrison F. Lewis has sent me the following note on a flockthat he watched near Quebec City, on February 22, 1920 : "At this pointtwo fields were partly separated by a rugged row of thorn bushes{Crataegus) of considerable size, on which hung much frozen fruit.Among these bushes and rising high above them stood three or fourtall spruce trees. Some of the waxwings were in the spruces, some werein the bushes, and some were on the wind-packed snow beneath. Therewas much activity, and birds were continually flying back and forthbetween trees, bushes, and snow. I was able to reach a position amongthe bushes, at the foot of one of the spruce trees, without disturbingthe flock much. I could then see plainly that the waxwings were feed-ing on the frozen fruit of the thorn bushes, for they would come un-concernedly to within about two rods of me while they were feeding.They swallowed the fruits whole but did so with great difficulty. Itseemed as if a bird made five or six unsuccessful attempts to swallowa fruit for every one successful attempt. After failing in one or twoattempts to swallow a particular fruit, a bird would drop it and tryanother, then perhaps drop that and try a third one, and so on. Thebirds working in the bushes apparently dropped most of the fruitwhich they pulled from the twigs, but these fallen fruits were immedi-ately mouthed over and some of them finally swallowed by the birds onthe surface of the snow. Sometimes the birds, with fruit in theirmouths, flew up into the spruces to swallow what they had secured."Behavior.?The Bohemian waxwing is a w^ell-behaved bird with agentle and inoffensive disposition, sociable and friendly among itsfellows and not hostile toward other species, even in competition for 72 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMfood. Waxwings are often vigorously attacked by robins that tryto drive them from the berrj^-bearing bushes, where they are peace-fully feeding, but the waxwings do not retaliate; the angry attacksby the hostile robins only cause them to step quietly aside and awaittheir turn. Audubon (1842) published an interesting account, givento him by Thomas McCulloch, which illustrates the devotion of oneof these birds to its wounded companion ; it returned again and againto its fallen friend, uttering notes of alarm and warning, and flyingagainst it in its efforts to urge it to escape from danger, until it paidwith its life for its friendly solicitude.It is very tame and confiding in the presence of human beings, beingquite unsuspicious and easily approached, as illustrated by the follow-ing observation by Thomas D. Burleigh (1930) :The birds on the University campus have gradually increased until now thereare fully eight hundred of them there; they feed on the ground or in the thicketswhere the bushes are full of berries, and are remarkably tame, allowing anyoneto walk up within a foot of them ; two lit on me as I stood watching them, oneon my shoulder and one on the top of my head, the latter bird remaining therefor several minutes ; a few minutes later, I held out my hand full of berries andone bird actually lit on my arm and standing on the sleeve of my mackinaw atethe berries without paying the slightest attention to me.The Bohemian waxwing shows its sociability by its pronouncedflocking habits ; even on its breeding grounds it is often seen movingabout in flocks, and it seems to prefer to nest in communities. S. F.Rathbun has contributed the following notes on flock behavior : "December 22, 1919. This morning we again heard these waxwingsand found them in the same locality where we had seen flocks on twoother occasions. The flock was a large one, a majority of the birds be-ing perched in or near the top of a large maple tree ; all were headeddirectl}'^ into the wind, which seems to be customary when any appreci-able wind is blowing; individuals were constantly dropping down tofeed on the berries in some adjacent mountain-ash trees. As usual,there was a constant movement in the flock, birds continually leavingand returning to it; and, to judge from the sound, the greater numberwere uttering their soft, rolling notes that are so pleasing to hear."A striking and very noticeable feature of a flock is that, when dis-turbed, nearly all the birds will take wing and circle around a numberof times until they come together in a close and compact body ; then itappears as if at the same instant all were impelled by the same impulseto alight, and the flock will sail up to the chosen spot on stiffly extendedwings, this action being uniform on the part of each individual ; andduring these various evolutions the soft, lisping notes of the birds arealways much in evidence. "In these flocks of waxwings other species will sometimes be foundin limited numbers, robins and cedar waxwings most commonly. It is BOHEMIAN WAXWING 73amusing to see the robins resent the presence of the Bohemians feedingupon the berries; the former would frequently make a dash at themand try to drive them away, but this was futile, as the latter simplyshifted their positions and resumed feeding."On another occasion we saw a large flock that numbered nearly 2,000birds, the majority occupying the tops of several small trees. Nearthe base of one of the trees, grew a tall, decorative rosebush, and asthe bush had many hips, numbers of the birds attempted to alighttherein to feed, but its branches, being too weak to sustain them, wouldcontinually give way, causing a constant commotion; the birds keptfluttering and interfering with one another and dislodging many hips,which fell to the walk beneath, to be eaten by the birds alighting there.The sight of these many birds in active motion reminded one of beesswarming about a hive."Bohemian waxwings are seldom seen singly, though one or two maybe seen occasionally in a flock of cedar waxwings, with which they seemto be on friendly terms and to have similar habits. Mr. Rathbunmentions in his notes one that he saw entirely alone and a long way fromhome; while he was crossing the Gulf of Alaska, and was some 20miles offshore, one solitary individual came aboard the ship andperched on one of the stays of the stack for nearly half an hour and thenflew ofl? low over the water toward land.P. M. Silloway (1903) says of their flight behavior:They were continually fluttering upward or outward from the tree-tops, hover-ing in air like kinghirds capturing insects a-wing. Their aerial movements weremuch like those of swallows over water, as they sailed, fluttered, or hovered withexpanded tail, or mounted obliquely upward with rapidly beating wings. Fre-quently a crowded company of them would fly outward from some tree in whichthey had been sitting, keeping together in undulating flight, veering abruptlyupward or downward or sidewise in capricious evolution.Voice.?As a vocalist the Bohemian waxwing is no star j)erformer.Mr. Swarth (1922) says of it:Under ordinary circumstances the only sound uttered by the waxwing is asibilant call note much like that of the more familiar cedar bird. While notes ofthe two species are of the same character, still they are distinguishably different.This difference may, perhaps, be indicated by describing the cedar bird's callas a hiss, the Bohemian waxwiug's call as a buzz. The note of the latter issomewhat coarser; the listener has an impression of hearing a series of veryslightly separated notes, rather than of a continuous sound such as the cedarbird utters.Mr, Cameron (1908) says that "when flying the birds keep up anincessant twittering, so that high passing flocks are immediately recog-nized by their call of zir-r-r-r?a sort of trill. * * * Xhe weakvoice of a single waxwing is inaudible except at very close quarters,but hundreds together produce quite a volume of sound." RalphHoffmann (1927) remarks that the note, 'given when the birds wheel843280--50 6 74 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM off in flight is a low rough scree, with more body than the sibilantcall of the Cedar Waxwing."Dr. Harrison F. Lewis (MS.) watched a flock, near Quebec, that "seemed to be 'all talking at once', and the result was a continuousand fairly loud noise. The ordinary note seemed to resemble that ofthe cedar waxwing but was shriller and lighter in tone, resembling alsothe loud sibilant note often uttered by the robin. Besides a continualshower of these notes, there seemed to come from the flock an unceasing,jumbled twitter, much like the twitter of a large flock of slate-coloredjuncos, contentedly feeding."Field marks.?A Bohemian might easily be mistaken for a cedarwaxwing. It is a larger bird, but size is sometimes deceptive wherethere is no direct comparison. The underparts of the cedar waxwingare largely yellowish, but decidedly grayish in the Bohemian, andthe latter has a black chin and a conspicuous white bar across thewing, and the under tail coverts are a rich brown.Enemies.?Frank L. Farley writes to me : "Pigeon hawks must takea heavy toll of the Bohemian waxwings while they are gathering inthe Rockies and foothills to commence their wanderings to the south.On several trips after big game into these regions, I have seen largeflocks of a hundred or more birds, sitting motionless and apparentlyfearful, on the top branches of a solitary leafless tree, out in an open-ing. If one looks about, he is almost certain to see a pigeon hawkperched in a nearby tree top, patiently watching the waxwings. Thebirds seem to know that they are safe, if they remain in the tree, but,if one puts them to flight, the hawk is off in a flash and easily takes onebefore the flock gets a hundred yards from the tree."Mr. Cameron (1908) says that, in very severe weather, when thewaxwings were somewhat stupified by the cold ? they became the prey of ranch cats. A very fine male which our cat broughtto me on Feb. 13, 1899, was quite fat after eighteen days of a cold wave duringwhich 45? below zero was registered. I do not tliink that many Waxwings fallvictims to Prairie Falcons, as they betake themselves to thick cover when thelatter are about. On March G, 1904, my wife and I approached within twoyards of a flock of Waxwings, which refused to leave a low cedar when aRough-legged Hawk was sailing above. "Winter.?It is probably failure of the food supply, rather than coldweather, that sends the Bohemians southward in winter. Mr. Cameron(1908) reports them as abundant winter residents even during themost severe winters, when the temperature goes down to 31? or 45?below zero. Given food enough, they seem to be able to stand themost intense cold.This species seems to be present regularly, in varying numbers,but apparently every winter, in Montana and in the Rocky Mountainregion as far south as Colorado. It appears less regularly, and usually BOHEMIAN WAXWING 75in smaller numbers, in Missouri, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, NewYork, and New England, these localities being far removed from itsbreeding grounds. Where food conditions are favorable, its wintersojourn may begin early in October and continue beyond the middleof April; the exact dates for different localities will be given under "Distribution."There have been several well-marked invasions recorded, in whichthese waxwings appeared in unusual localities and in enormous num-bers. The most conspicuous flights occurred in the winters of 1908-09, 1916-17, 1919-20, and 1930-31. The first of these reported inva-sions covered such widely separated localities as New England, Iowa,and Colorado. The New England records are given in detail byHorace W. Wright ( 1921) , to which the reader is referred. For Iowa,Miss Althea E. Sherman (1921) reported that ? on December 29, 1908, the day the Bohemian Waxwings arrived, a vast flockof birds was seen by two observei's at points a half mile apart. * * * Thefirst observer was Mr. Jerome Jones, who stated that soon after daylight a vastflock of birds flew over his head, "millions of them" he estimated ; that theycovered the sky and were several minutes in passing. * * * The other ob-server was Mrs. D. A. Wright, whose description of the flock was written downsoon after it passed and was substantially as follows: About eight o'clock inthe morning she saw a flock, containing thousands of birds, fly northeast. Theyflew as closely together as birds ever do and covered a space from two hundredto three hundred feet in width and were two or three minutes in passing. Shebelieved they were Bohemian Waxwings, nine of \^'hich for the followingeighteen days frequented her mountain ash tree. There seems to be no otherspecies to which to assign the birds of this great flock.During the winter of 1916-17 there was a great invasion of thesewaxwings throughout the western part of the country, at least fromWashington to Colorado. Mr. Rathbun has sent me the followingaccount of the birds that visited Seattle : "The great incursion of the winter of 1916-17 will long be remem-bered, for many, many thousands of individuals of the species were inthe region at that time. As nearly as can be ascertained, this speciesmade its first appearance about December 10, in flocks of considerablesize ; but, on the 26th or 27th, the great body of the birds arrived num-bering thousands of individuals, which thereafter for some consider-able period could be observed almost every day within a comparativelyrestricted area some six miles in length along the eastern border of thecity, adjacent to Lake Washington. This was accounted for by thefact that within this particular section there was an abundant foodsupply in the form of the berries of the madrona tree {Arbutus men-ziesii) , which had fruited with unusual abundance the past season, andof which the waxwings appeared very fond ; it was not uncommon attimes to count in one of the larger trees upward of five hundred ofthe birds. 76 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM "Always associated with the waxwings were flocks of the westernrobin {Turdus migrato7ius froyinquus) ; of this species the individ-uals numbered several thousands ; and at times when suddenly startled,this immense body of birds would arise, scattering in every direction,and then begin to congregate in flocks. On some occasions, they wouldall amalgamate into one vast flock and, after flying about, would againbreak up into small flocks; these would alight in the berry-laden treesand immediately resume feeding, until again disturbed, when theseevolutions would be repeated. At all times the soft, rolling chatter ofthe many waxwings could be heard, which added to the interestingspectacle. On one particular occasion apparently all the individualsin a large portion of the section became associated, forming a flock thatbj'^ careful estimate was an eighth of a mile in length and of consider-able width."Many times, in these flocks of Bohemian waxwings, we observed afew cedar waxwings and, in the same locality, small flocks of pinesiskins and willow goldfinches, which would sometimes mingle withthe former in flight, but disassociate when the waxwings alighted. "About January 25, the supply of madrona berries in this sectionbecame practicall}^ exhausted, and thereafter the waxwings were seenin smaller flocks and became scattered throughout the city in quest ofsuitable food. On many occasions the birds were seen in the parks ofthe city and about the residences where there was shrubbery that mightbear berries ; this continued until about February 15, after which datewe have failed to note them."Several observers have connnented on the abundance of Bohemianwaxwings in Colorado during that winter, where the species may bea fairly regular winter visitor in the mountains, but is rarely seen inlarge numbers in the foothills, towns, and cities. Frederick C. Lin-coln (1939) writes:The most impressive invasion of this bird to be recorded in the history ofColorado ornithology occurred in February 1917, at which time I estimated that atleast 10,000 were present within the corporate limits of the city of Denver. Largeflocks were to be found in all of the city's parlss, where they frequented fruit-bearing shrubbery i)articularly the Russian olive. Many citizens tried to feed thevisitors and after vainly offering bread crumbs and seeds of various kinds, finallydiscovered tliat canned peas were very acceptable. The last previous occurrenceof the species in large numbers in that section was in 1908.The most widespread and perhaps the greatest invasion of all camein the winter of 1919-20. Mr. Kathbun refers to this in his notes fromSeattle; the first waxwings were seen there on November 25, and theyincreased in numbers from then on, reaching their maximum in Decem-ber and January and decreasing in February; the last one was notedon March 1.Gabrielson and Jewett (1940) write : "The Bohemian waxwing is an BOHEMIAN WAXWING 77irregular winter visitor over most of the State but appears most regu-larly in the mountain valleys about the base of the Blue Mountains.* * * In the winter of 1919-20 there occurred a big invasion ofthese birds, and they were present in numbers in Portland, Corvallis,and other points in western Oregon as well as over most of easternOregon, reaching at least as far south as Adel, Lake County, whereGabrielson collected a bird out of a flock of approximately three hun-dred on April 3, 1920."This invasion extended to Nebraska, where large flocks were seen allover the State. Many hundreds were seen also in northern Illinois.This flight also reached New England, as far south as Massachusetts,but in comparatively small numbers. According to Horace W.Wright (1921), there had been a somewhat heavier invasion of NewEngland during the latter part of the winter of 1918-19. There was amarked spread of Bohemian waxwings in Colorado in the winter of1930-31, but it was not nearly of the magnitude of that which occurredin 1916-17. Gabrielson and Jewett (1940) report that the birds ap-peared again in numbers during the winter of 1931-32, "going farsouth into California, according to published reports."DISTRmUTIONRange.?The Bohemian waxwing breeds in wooded sections of thenorthern i^art of the Northern Hemisphere, wandering irregularlysouthward in winter, sometimes in immense flocks.Breeding range.?The Bohemian waxwing is a vagrant and is ir-regular in its occurrences. Comparatively few nests of young havebeen found, and the outlining of the range where they may be foundbreeding in North America depends to a large extent on records ofbirds seen in the breeding season. This area extends north to north-ern Alaska (Kobuk River, Fort Yukon, and the Porcupine Riverabove Coleen), northern Mackenzie (Aklavik, Fort Anderson, LeithPoint on Great Bear Lake, and Fort Reliance) ; northeastern Sas-katchewan (Theitaga Lake); and northern Manitoba (Churchill),the easternmost point. South to nortliern Manitoba (Churchill andCochrane River) ; southern Alberta (Flagstaff, Buffalo Lake nearAlix, Red Deer, and Banff) ; northwestern Montana (Glacier Parkand Granite Park) ; northern Idaho (Sandpoint) ; and central Wash-ington (Lake Cle Elum). It has also been found in summer near theeast base of Mount Evans, Colo., at about 12,000 feet altitude. Westto central Washington (Lake Cle Elum) ; central British Columbia(mountains near Alta Lake, Quesnel, Hazelton, Telegraph Creek, andAtlin) ; southwestern Yukon (Burwash Landing) ; and to central and 78 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMwestern Alaska (Chitina Moraine, Mount McKinley National Parlr,Nulato, and Kobuk Kiver) . Winter range.?The winter wanderings of the Bohemian waxwingare very irregular, probably influenced to a large degree by foodsupply. They may be present by the thousands in one year andthen not be seen again for a long time. These "winter" occurrencesfrequently are not until late in winter or even spring. The area overwhich the species has occurred in winter or spring extends north tosoutheastern Alaska (Juneau) ; southwestern Mackenzie (FortLiard) ; central British Columbia (Francois Lake and PuntchesakutLake) ; southern Alberta (Bullalo Lake and Sullivan Lake) ; south-ern Saskatchewan (Eastend, Eegina, and Yorkton) ; southern Mani-toba (Brandon, Portage la Prairie, and Selkirk) ; southern Ontario(Lake Nipissing, Algonquin Park, and Ottawa) ; southern Quebec(Montreal and Quebec) ; Prince Edward Island (Tignish) ; and NovaScotia (Pictou). East to Nova Scotia (Pictou and Halifax) ; south-ern Maine (Bangor and Auburn) ; and eastern Massachusetts (Boltonand Taunton) . South to eastern Massachusetts (Taunton) ; Connecti-cut (Torrington) ; Pennsylvania (Atglen) ; central Ohio (Delawareand Quincy) ; central Indiana (Kichmond and Indianapolis) ; south-ern Illinois (Villa Ridge) ; northwestern Arkansas (Fayetteville andWinslow) ; Kansas (Topeka, Wichita, and Hays) ; a single record innorthwestern Texas (Palo Duro Creek, Eandall County) ; Colorado(Colorado Springs, Salida, and Grand Junction) ; one record in cen-tral northern New Mexico (Gold Hill) ; northern Arizona (GrandCanyon and Mojave; and a single occurrence in the BaboquivariMountains in southern Arizona) ; and southern California (Danby,Daggett, Victorville, and Claremont). West to western California(Claremont, Berkeley, and Eureka) ; western Oregon (Carlton andPortland) ; Washington (Olympia, Seattle, and Bellingham) ; BritishColumbia (Esquimalt, southern Vancouver Island; and Vancouver) ;and southeastern Alaska (Ketchikan, Wrangell, and Juneau).Migratio7i.?The Bohemian waxwing is not migratory in the ordi-nary sense of the term, but a few dates of fall arrival and spring de-parture may be useful to show the erratic nature of its movements.Dates of fall arrival are: Quebec?Montreal, November 23. NewYork?Ithaca, November 28. Michigan?Sault Ste. Marie, October26. Illinois?Waukegan, November 26. Minnesota?St. Paul, Octo-ber 24. South Dakota?Yankton, November 29. Colorado?FortMorgan, October 13. Wyoming?Yellowstone Park, October 27.Montana?Fortine, September 11.Dates of last seen in spring are: Montana?Great Falls, May 14.Wyoming?Laramie, April 5. Colorado?Denver, May 20. NorthDakota?Fargo, April 18. Minnesota?Duluth, April 25. Wiscon-sin?Madison, March 23. Illinois?Chicago, April 18. Ohio ? CEDAR V>^AX1VING 79Youngstown, May 14. New York?Rochester, March 26. Massa-chusetts?Boston, April 27. New Brunswick?Scotch Lake, April 28.Quebec?Quebec, April 12.Banding records.?During an invasion in March 1932, several Bo-hemian waxwings were banded at Waukegan, 111. One banded onMarch 23 was found dying on April 11 at Milwaukee, Wis., and onebanded on March 25 was caught alive on April 15 at Craik, Saskatche-wan, where it was kept until it died on May 1.A bird banded at Summerland, British Columbia, on February 15,1933, was killed on March 20, 1934, at Silver City, S. Dak.During an invasion of Bohemian waxwings in Denmark in 1944, abird was captured that had been banded on Helgoland in December1941, during the previous invasion.Casual record.?A specimen of the Old World race {B. g. garrulus)was collected June 14, 1931, from a flock of four at Cape Tobin, Liver-pool Land, near the outlet of Scoresby Sound, East Greenland.Egg dates.?Alberta: 24 records, May 24 to June 13; 17 records,May 29 to June 6, indicating the height of the season.British Columbia: 39 records, June 11 to July 24; 20 records, July8 to 16. BOMBYCILLA CEDKORUM VieillotCEDAR WAXWINGContributed by Winsor Marrett TylerHABITSCedar waxwings impress us as being unlike most of the birds weknow. We see them commonly in flocks or small companies throughthe greater part of the year, but we never know just when they willappear, or how numerously, for the movements of these flocks do notconform to the regular northern and southern swings of migrationthat the majority of North American birds make to and from theirbreeding grounds. Moreover, unlike most birds, there is no closerelationship between the time of tlieir arrival on their nesting groundsand the commencement of breeding.Wlien we become well acquainted with the waxwing we look uponhim as the perfect gentleman of the bird world. There is in him arefinement of deportment and dress ; his voice is gentle and subdued ; he is quiet and dignified in manner, sociable, never quarrelsome, andinto one of his habits, that of sharing food with his companions, wemay read, without too much stress of imagination, the quality ofpoliteness, almost unselfishness, very rare, almost unheard of, in theanimal kingdom. His plumage is delicate in coloring?soft, quietbrowns, grays, and pale yellow?set off, like a carnation in our button-hole, by a touch of red on the wing. 80 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMAlexander Wilson (Wilson and Bonaparte, 1832), writing of thisattractive decoration, says: "Six or seven, and sometimes the wholenine, secondary feathers of the wings are ornamented at the tips withsmall red oblong appendages, resembling red sealing-wax; these aj)-pear to be a prolongation of the shafts, and to be intended for preserv-ing the ends, and consequently the vanes, of the quills, from beingbroken and worn away by the almost continual fluttering of the birdamong thick branches of the cedar. The feathers of those birdswhich are without these appendages are uniformly found ragged onthe edges, but smooth and perfect in those on whom the marks are fulland numerous."Sprmg.?Spring begins late with the cedar waxwings, for althoughmany move northward into New England in January and Februaryand often linger for weeks, sometimes in great numbers, attracted bya plentiful supply of food, these apparently are merely wanderingflocks (noted under "Winter") . The breeding birds of the TransitionZone, the real spring birds, do not arrive, it is thought, until well intoMay, and even then they do not start nesting until long afterward.William Brewster (1906) ably summarizes their movements in theregion about Boston, Mass., during the first part of the year. He says : The seasonal movements of the Cedarbird are somewhat erratic and not asyet fully understood. There is apparently a double migration northward, thefirst flight?which is much the heavier of the two?reaching eastern Massa-chusetts anywhere between the last of January and the tirst of March. Thebirds which compose it appear suddenly, often in very large flocks, and makethemselves peculiarly conspicuous by roaming restlessly over the country, fre-quently visiting densely populated localities to feast on the berries of themountain ash, the English hawthorn, Parkman's apple and other cultivatedtrees. They also eat asparagus berries, and they are especially fond of theberries of the red cedar or Virginia juniper. They disappear almost completelybefore the end of April, presumably going further north to breed, although thishas never been definitely established.The second flight, which arrives in May, is believed to be made up chiefly, ifnot wholly, of the birds which pass the summer with us. They appear in pairsor in small, scattered flocks which are seen almost everywhere but most fre-anies, or singly ; and subsequently Ifound a few individuals between El Chino and Los Angeles; but they were in-variably black, with the white wing spot. And I never on any occasion, exceptthe one I have referred to, saw one of those clad in dusky garments, which Ihad supposed were females.The accuracy of this account of approximately a century ago isattested by its close agreement in practically every particular with thewritings of more modern ornithologists, including the comments onthe apparent scarcity of females. Incidentally, there seems to be noreason to suppose that the phainopepla's living conditions havechanged greatly since that date, except on the sites of cities and towns ; food supplies may even have been increased in some places.Voice.?The most frequent utterance is a liquid quirf, or perp, re-peated at intervals of one or two seconds. This call has rather a wor-ried sound and does, in fact, often indicate anxiety ; at times, however,it is kept up almost interminably without ascertainable reason. Othernotes of the phainopepla have been well described by Mrs. Bailey(1896) : BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMIn watcbing the birds at their nests, I found that they had a number of calls.The commonest was uttered in the same tone by both male and female, and waslike the call of a young Robin. In giving it, they flashed their tails, showing thesquare corners conspicuously. The male also had a harsh cry of warning, drawnout lilie ca-raclc or ca-ra-ack. In addition, he had a scold and a note suggestingthe Meadowlark. The Phainopepla's ordinary song had some weak squeakingnotes, but it also had phrases of rich blackbird quality, recalling the o-ka-lee ofthe marshes. One of these was a high keyed whee'-dle-ah. Other parts could beroughly syllabified as kit-er-ah-at and cher-nack'-cc. The song in flight wasbright and animated. I once heard a bird break out as he came down from asally into the air, and he often flew away from the nest singing. Sometimes Ithought he even sang in the nest. * * * Indeed, to me the Phainopepla'ssong was pleasing in spite of its jumbled notes, not merely because of the flute-like quality of some of its tones, but pre-eminently because of the bright, viva-cious way in which it was uttered.Field marks.?Both sexes may be recognized by the high crest,slender form, the flaring end of the tail, and by their characteristicmanner of flight. When the male is in flight, the disklike white wingpatches contrasting with the otherwise black plmnage are unmistak-able. Even the nestlings may be rather easily identified by their erectcrests. The adults seldom lower their crests?perhaps only whenangry or when facing a stiff wind.Enemies.?Obviously, few if any of the phainopepla's enemies areterrestrial. Although the birds express marked disapproval of cats,it is hard to see how the latter would be able to harm them, except incases of disabled adults or young birds fallen from the nest. Whileno reports are at hand, their nests undoubtedly suffer to some extentfrom the smaller climbing and flying predators. Dr. Herbert Fried-mann (1929) lists this species as "apparently a rare victim ofthe * * * Cowbirds," with but one record known. Concerningany possible enemies which might attack the adults, there is littleinformation.To be classed as a persecutor rather than a dangerous enemy, themockingbird displays an unreasonable spite against the phainopepla,pursuing this inoffensive bird upon every opportunity. Mrs. Myers(1909), telling of the successive nesting failures of a pair of phaino-peplas, surmised that abandonment of their nesting sites might wellhave been the result of persistent persecution by mockingbirds.With only two or three eggs to the set, and with but one rather slow-growing brood yearly in some localities, at least, the phainopepla'smortality rate must be unusually low as compared with that of otherpasserine birds. The impression received in field observation of thespecies is definitely that of a shy, timid bird, perhaps even more byreason of its manner than its actions. Possibly this constant attitudeof wariness and suspicion is of substantial benefit in prolonging its lifespan and making unnecessary a high rate of increase. PHAINOPEPLA 113Fall.?Kegarding the postbreeding dispersal, Harry S. Swarth(1904), in writing of the Huachuca Mountains in Arizona, says:"About the end of July, 1902, a movement began from the lower valleysup into the mountains, and during August the Phainopeplas were mostnumerous throughout the oak region, up to about 5000 feet. At thistime they were in loose straggling flocks of from six to a dozen birds,young and old together, and were generally seen sitting in the treetops and feeding for the most part, as flycatchers."Most of the phainopeplas leave the Pacific slope of California dur-ing the month of August, though stragglers are often seen in Septem-ber or October, or occasionally in midwinter. Whether some of theseindividuals winter in the deserts of southeastern California and south-ern Arizona, or whether they all pass over the desert regions to winterfarther south, seems not yet to have been determined.DISTRIBUTIONRange.?Southwestern United States and Mexico.Breeding range.?The phainopepla breeds north to central Cali-fornia (Marysville, perhaps the Lassen Peak region, and Murphys) ; probably southern Nevada (Tempahute Kange) ; southwestern Utah(St. George and Zion National Park) ; central Arizona (Campe Verdeand the Salt River Wildlife Refuge; wandering north to KeamsCanyon) ; southwestern New Mexico (Silver City, Fort Webster, andElephant Butte) ; and southwestern Texas (Pine Springs, probably).East to southwestern Texas (Pine Springs, Cathedral Mountain, andBoquillas ; and has occurred, apparently as a wanderer, as far east asSan Antonio) ; Nuevo Leon (Galeana) ; Hidalgo (Cuesta Tesqueda) ;Puebla (Tehuacan) ; and south to Oaxaca (Tehuantepec). West toOaxaca (Tehuantepec) ; Puebla (Huehuetlan) ; northwestern Du-rango (Rosario) ; Lower California (Cape San Lucas, La Paz, SanFernando, and Ensenada) ; and western California (San Diego, SantaCatalina Island, Santa Barbara, San Antonio Valley, Stockton, andMarysville) . Winter range.?While the phainopepla is migratory to some extent,it has been found almost as far north in winter as in summer, and itdoes not seem possible from present information to outline a definitewinter range as distinct from the breeding range.The range as outlined for the entire species inckides two subspecies.The eastern phainopepla {P. n. nitens) occurs from southwesternTexas through eastern Mexico to Oaxaca; the western phainopepla{P. n. lepida) occurs from central California and southwestern NewMexico, south through western Mexico to Durango and southern LowerCalifornia.Eggs dates.?Arizona : 34 records, April 4 to June 19 ; 18 records.May 13 to 30, indicating the height of the season. 114 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMCalifornia : 150 records, February 23 to July 15 ; 20 records, March8 to 29 ; 84 records, June 1 to 30.Mexico : 24 records, April 10 to June 3 ; 15 records, May 11 to 28.Family LANIIDAE : ShrikesLANIUS BOREALIS BOREALIS VieillotNORTHERN SHRIKEHABITSThe great northern shrike, or butcherbird, is known to most of usonly as a rather uncommon winter visitor throughout the northernhalf of the United States, where we see it as a solitary sentinel perchedon the top of a tree, looking for some luckless small bird, or hoveringover an open field, ready to pounce on the timid little mouse as itthreads his winter runway. Either bird or mouse is to be added to hislarder, impaled on a nearby thorn or crotch, as the butcher hangs hismeat; hence the appropriate name of butcherbird (pi. 15).Few of us have been favored to see it in its summer home, for itbreeds as far north as the spruce forests extend and comes south onlywhen scarcity of food compels it to do so. We found it fairly commonall along the coast of Labrador, from Hopedale to Nain and Okkak,wherever there was any considerable growth of fair-sized spruces.According to Lucien M. Turner (MS.), it was not very common atFort Chimo, Ungava. Westward from Hudson Bay it begins tointergrade with the northwestern subspecies {invictus).Nesting.?There are three sets of eggs of the northern shrike in mycollection, all taken by the Kev. W. W. Perrett at Hopedale, Labrador.They were all placed in spruce trees, about 12 feet from the ground,nicely hidden by the branches, and all were very bulky affairs. Thefirst nest was discovered by seeing the male bird carrying food to thefemale while she was sitting on the nest ; the nest contained only twoeggs, on June 7, 1915, but the data slip says "incubation just begun";the nest was made mainly of twigs, grass, feathers, rags, and deer hair.This same pair of birds built another nest in the same patch of woods,about 150 yards from the first nest, from which he took a set of fourfresh eggs on June 17, 1915 ; these birds had built their new nest inseven days; as there were no eggs in it on the 13th, the bird must havelaid an &gg each day. The third set of six fresh eggs was taken onJune 3, 1918. The three nests were all made of similar materials.There is another set of six eggs of this shrike in the CarnegieMuseum, taken by Mr. Perrett in the same locality on June 17, 1918,for which W. E. Clyde Todd has sent me the data. The nest was con-structed of similar materials and was located 8 feet from the ground ina spruce tree. This was evidently the second set fi'om the same pair NORTHERN SHRIKE 115 of birds from which my set of six eggs was taken on June 3. Thissecond nest was located about 400 yards from the first; it had beenbuilt and the six eggs laid in the short time that intervened.Eggs.?The usual set for the northern shrike may consist of two tonine eggs, though I believe that any sets of less than four are incom-plete and that the large number of nine is unusual ; probably four tosix are the usual numbers. Wliat few eggs of this species I have seenare ovate or rounded-ovate and nearly lusterless. The ground color isgrayish white or greenish white, and they are usually heavily spottedor blotched over the entire surface, seldom having the spots concen-trated at one end, with olive-brown, dull olive, or pale dull brown, andwith underlying spots and blotches of different pale shades of Quakerdrab or lavender. The measurements of 31 eggs average 26.7 by 19.5millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 28.0 by 20.0,27.0 by 20.5, and 25.9 by 18.5 millimeters.Plumages.?A very full account of all the plumages of all the NorthAmerican shrikes has been published by Dr. Alden H. Miller (1931),to which the reader is referred ; his descriptions are given in too muchdetail to be quoted here. Dr. Dwight (1900) describes the juvenalplumage of a specimen taken in Labrador, as follows : "Above, brown-ish mouse-gray with indistinct vermiculations, especially on the rump.Wings black, a white area at bases of primaries; the coverts, terti-aries and secondaries edged with wood-brown, or pale cinnamonmottled from irregidar extension of the color, and similar tippingon the rectrices which are black, the lateral ones largely white. Belowmouse-gray, nearly white on mid-abdomen, indistinctly vermiculated,more marked on sides and crissum. Bar through eye dull clove-brown; lores grayish."A partial postjuvenal molt occurs, mainly in July and August,which involves the contour plumage and the wing coverts, but not therest of the wings or the tail, producing a first winter plumage, whichDr. Dwight (1900) describes as follows: "Above, French gi*ay washedwith brownish gi*ay, the rump grayish white. Lesser coverts ciner-eous gray, the median black, the retained greater coverts dull blackbuff tipped. Below grayish white with indistinct dusky vermicula-tions except on the chin, abdomen and crissum. Tail black, thethree outer rectrices with much white. Lores grayish. Bar througheye dusky."He says that the first nuptial plumage is "acquired by a partialprenuptial moult in March which involves the anterior part of thehead, chin and throat. A whiter chin and black lores are acquired,young and old becoming practically indistinguishable. A good dealof the vermiculation is lost by wear of the feather edges." Dr. Miller(1931) says that this molt, "as far as known, occurs in March andApril and is associated with the change of the bill from brown to 116 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMblack." And he adds that the young bird frequently loses, at thismolt, "large, but often irregular, areas of the brown first fall plum-age from the back, head, and shoulders."Dr. Dwight (1900) says that the adult winter plumage is acquiredby a complete postnuptial molt, which Dr. Miller (1931) says occursin July and August, "perhaps also early September." Accordingto Dr. Dwight, this adult winter plumage differs from the first winter'plumage "in having a white wing band on the greater coverts, thetertiaries and secondaries with white edgings, the wings and tail jet-black, including all the coverts. The back is grayer without thebrownish tint of the young bird."The above remarks apply to the male; in the female the sequence ofmolts and plumages is the same. Ridgway ( 1904:) says that the youngfemale, in first winter plumage, is "similar to the young male of cor-responding season but browner, the color of upper parts approachingIsabella color, the scapulars, lower rump, and upper tail-covertswashed with cinnamon-buff, under parts more or less washed with thesame, especially on sides and flanks, greater wing-coverts edged withthe same, and white at tips of secondaries and rectrices more or lessbuffy." In the adult female, the gray of the upper parts is less purethan in the male, darker and more or less tinged with olive, the blackof the wings and tail is duller, and the white markings are more re-stricted.Food.?Dr. Sylvester D. Judd (1898) writes of the food of thenorthern shrike: "During its winter sojourn it renders a threefoldservice by killing grasshoppers, English sparrows, and mice. Thebirds and mice together amount to 60 percent, and insects to 40 per-cent, of the food from October to April. Grasshoppers constituteone-fourth of the food, and are equal to twice the combined amountsof beetles and caterpillars. * * * jj^ ^]^g stomachs of the 67butcherbirds examined 28 species of seed-eating birds were found.Of these 3 were tree sparrows, 5 juncos, and 7 English sparrows; theothers could not be determined with certainty."In the early days of the English sparrow in this country, whilethey were being protected, northern shrikes became so abundant onBoston Common that men were employed to shoot them, lest they de-stroy the sparrows. In this connection, Dr. Judd remarks : "It is tobe hoped that in other cities this enemy of tlie sparrow will be pro-tected instead of persecuted. If there were 6 butcherbirds in eachof 20 New England cities, and each butcherbird killed 1 sparrow aday for the three winter months, the result would be a removal of10,800 sparrows. Since two sparrows could raise under favorableconditions four broods of 5 each, the increase would be tenfold, sothat those destroyed by the butcherbirds, if allowed to live, would NORTHERN SHRIKE 117have amounted at the end of the first year to 118,800, and at the endof the second year to 1,306,800 individuals."In addition to the three named above, he lists the following birdsthat this shrike has been known to kill: Chickadee, snow bunting,downy woodpecker, vireo, kinglet, field sparrow, goldfinch, siskin,myrtle warbler, mourning dove, cardinal, longspur, and horned lark.Among mammals, meadow mice {Microtis) seem to be the mostfrequent victims, but Judd also lists the white-footed mouse {Peroinys-cus) and the harvest mouse {Reithrodontomys) , He continues:Carrion is sometimes eaten. Pi'of. F. E. L. Beal, while at Ames, Iowa, InJanuary, 18S0, saw a butcherbird fly over the brown frozen prairie to a carcassof a cow, where it lit on one of the ribs and greedily tore off shreds of the flesh.Active insects are much more liable than sluggish ones to fall victims to thebutcherbird, because objects which at rest can not be discriminated are instantlyseen when moving. Thus it happens that flying grasshoppers and running beetlesform a large proportion of the food of this bird. Grasshoppers and crickets(Orthoptcra) , which are eaten during every month from October to April, form24 percent of the total volume of food, and for October and November togetherthese insect pests form more than half of the food. Compared with Orthoptera,the beetles (Coleoptera) eaten are of minor importance, amounting to only 6percent of the food. More than half of these beetles belong to the familyCaraMdae, the members of which prey upon insect pests. Caterpillars werecontained in one fifth of the stomachs examined, and during the months ofJanuary and February amount to 8 percent of the volume of the stomach con-tents. Dr. A. K. Fisher collected in March two stomachs that were full ofcaterpillars. Even the bristly Isabella caterpillar is eaten, an object apparentlyas edible as a chestnut bur. Cutworms were found in several instances, butmoths were seldom met with. Ants, wasps, flies, and thousand legs are some-times eaten, and spiders constitute 3 percent of the food ; but bugs (Hemiptera)were not detected during our laboratory investigations, though a cicada sup-posed to have been impaled by a shrike was found by Mrs. Musick, at MountCarmel, Mo. * ? *The present investigation shows that beneficial birds form less than one-fourth of the food of the butcherbird. It also shows that the butcherbird, inaddition to being an enemy of mice, is a potent check on the English sparrow, andon several insect pests. One-fourth of its food is mice ; another fourth grass-hoppers ; a third fourth consists of native sparrows and predaceous beetles andspiders, while the remainder is made up of English sparrows and species ofinsects, most of which are noxious.The amount of insect food taken by the northern shrike, as statedabove, seems surprising. The stomachs examined must have beentaken largely in the southern extremes of its winter range, or in fallor spring, for the shrike would not be likely to find flying or crawl-ing insects in New England or in the Northern States in the dead ofwinter; but grasshoppers are often available in New England inOctober, and even in some Novembers, and other insects in March.Dr. Miller (1931) adds the following birds to the list mentionedabove, as taken by the species, including both subspecies: Hairywoodpecker, phoebe, white-winged crossbill, redpoll, titmouse, bush- 118 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM tit, and robin. Clmrles B. Floyd (1928) adds song, white-tliroated,and fox sparrows and the starling to the list of victims and says : Several reports are at hand of unsuccessful attempts to capture "White-breastedNuthatches, English Sparrows, Downy Woodpeckers, etc. In several caseswhere a Shrike pursued Nuthatches, the latter escaped capture by enteringa hole in a tree or a nesting-box. The Dowuy Woodpecker often out-manoeuvredits pursuer by constantly turning and dodging in the air rather than by flyingaway in an attempt to escape by speed, as do almost all the other small birds.Twice this winter I have personally watched a Shrike attempt to capture aDowny Woodpecker from above. Each time that the Shrike swooped to strikethe bird, the Downy turned quickly in the air at a sharp angle, the Shrike over-shooting its mark. It then turned with much more effort than the woodpecker,and again took up the pursuit. So long as they were in sight?and I saw theShrike swoop a number of times?the Woodpecker continued on its way appar-ently unafraid, and dodged each attack with ease.Several observers have seen shrikes chasing blue jays or found oneof the jays impaled in the usual shrike fashion. Ora W. Knight(1908) adds the pine grosbeak to the list of the shrike's victims. Wil-liam Brewster (1936) gives the following account of a shrike in pur-suit of a brown creeper : When I first saw him, he was in hot pursuit of one of the Brown Creepersand both birds wore about over the middle of the river and scarce a yardapart. The Creeper made straight for the big elm which stands at the easternend of the bridge. When he reached it, the Shrike's bill was within six inchesof his tail, but he nevertheless escaped ; for an instant after the two birdsdoubled around behind the trunk the Shrike rose to the topmost spray of theelm, where he sat for a minute or more, gazing intently downward, evidentlywatching for the Creeper. The latter, no doubt, had flattened himself againstthe bark after the usual practice of his kind when badly frightened and he hadthe nerve and good sense to remain perfectly still for at least ten tninutes. Myeyes were no better than the Shrike's, for it was in vain that I scanned the trunkover and over with the greatest care. Feeling sure, however, that the Creeperwas really there, I waited patiently until at the end of the period just named hebegan running up the trunk, starting at the very point where I had seen himdisappear. It was one of the prettiest demonstrations of the effectivenessof protective coloration that I have ever witnessed.In the same publication, he vividly describes the capture and killingof a field mouse : As I watched a Shrike it flew from the topmost spray of a small maple intosome alders and alighted on a horizontal stem about a foot above the level ofsurrounding snow but directly beneath; as I afterwards found, the snow hadthawed quite down to the ground, leaving a trench about two feet deep by threeor four inches wide, into which the Shrike, after peering intently for a moment,suddenly dropped with fluttering wings and wide opened tail.Within a second or less it reappeared, dragging out a Field Mouse of thelargest size. The moment it got the Mouse fairly out on the level surface ofthe snow it dropped it apparently to get a fresh hold (as nearly as I could makeout it had held it up to this time by about the middle of the back). The Mouse,instead of attempting to regain its run way, as I expected it would do, Instantlyturned on its assailant and with surprising fierceness and agility sprang directly NORTHERN SHRIKE 119 at its head many times in succession, actually driving it backward several feetalthough the Shrike faced its attacks with admirable steadiness and coolnessand by a succession of vigorous and well aimed blows prevented the Mousefrom closing in.At length the Mouse seemed to lose heart and, turning, tried to escape. Thissealed its fate for at the end of the second leap it was overtaken by the Shrike,who caught it by the back of the neck and began to worry it precisely as a Ter-rier worries a Rat, shaking it viciously from side to side, at the same timedragging it about over the snow which, as I could plainly see through my glass(I was standing within ten yards of the spot) was now freely stained withblood. I could also see the Shrike's mandible work with a vigorous, biting mo-tion, especially when it stopped the shaking to rest for a moment. When itfinally let go its hold, the Mouse was evidently dead.After the shrike had carried off the mouse in its claws, partly eatenit and hung it in a fork, Mr, Brewster examined the mouse.The Shrike had not touched any part of the body but the skin had been tornaway from the entire neck and the muscles and other soft tissues were almostentirely gone from the shoulders and sternum to the base of the skull. The bodywas untouched and the skull showed no signs of injury, but the cheek muscleshad been eaten pretty cleanly away as had also the entire throat with the tongue.Both eyes were whole and in their sockets. This examination confirmed theconviction which I formed while watching the Shrike and Mouse strugglingtogether, viz. that the bird killed the Mouse partly by throttliny?that is bychoking and shaking it and partly (perhaps chiefly) by cutting open its neckon one side. No attempt was made to stun the Mouse by striking at its skull,such blows as I saw delivered being evidently intended merely to keep theMouse at bay until the Shrike could close with it and get it by the neck as itfinally did.Mr. Brewster's close observation and careful description shows whatis perhaps the shrike's usual method of killing rodents, and I canfind very little evidence to the contrary, but Mr. Forbush (1929) saysthat John Muir "saw a shrike go down into a gopher hole and driveout half a dozen young gophers, and hovering over one after anotheras they ran, it killed them all by blows delivered from its powerfulbill on the back of each one's head."Dr. W. S. Strode (1889) tells the following story of a mouse-hunt-ing shrike : Not long since a young farmer invited me out to his field near town where hewas husking shock corn, to see a "Mouse Hawk," as he called it, catch mice.On coming to where he was at work I looked about for the Shrike but did notsee it until he pointed to a tree two hundred yards away where it sat on thetopmost twig. Pretty soon a mouse ran from the shock, when it came almostwith the rapidity of an arrow, and seizing the mouse in its bill flew away withit to the woods across the river, but in a short time it was back again at itsperch on the tree where it did not remain long until another mouse ran outfrom the shock. In order to test the bird's boldness I pursued this mouse, but un-daunted it flew almost between my feet and secured it, and apparently not lik-ing its hold it alighted a few rods away and hammered the mouse on the frozenground, and then tossing it in the air caught it by the throat as it came down. Hethen again flew off to the woods. This proceeding the farmer assured me would 120 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM ^'be repeated many times in the course of the day, and that every mouse would becarried to the strip of woods just over the river. Subsequently a chopper toldme that he had found a honey locust tree in this woods that had mice stuckall over it on the thorns.The northern shrike has two principal methods of hunting, watch-ful waiting and active pursuit. The former metliod is the one usuallyemployed, as in the above accounts, in securing mice ; the bird perchespatiently and motionless on some commanding tree, post, or wire,ready to pounce suddenly on its unsuspecting quarry; mice may besecured also by hovering over their runways in the fields and meadows.Grasshoppers, crickets, and other moving insects may be taken bywatching for them, hovering over the fields, or by active pursuit onthe ground, though I have not seen the latter method mentioned.But birds must be caught by active pursuit in the air or by chasingthem through the trees and bushes ; in the latter case the birds escapemore often than they are caught by seeking the shelter of dense growthwhere the shrike is less adept in penetrating the thickets and dodgingthrough the tangles of branches and twigs; cedars and other denseevergreens offer excellent havens of refuge for small birds. Smallbirds easily recognize the difference between a shrike and some otherharmless bird, and immediately "freeze" in their tracks, or seek shelterin the nearest dense cover.The shrike is a fairly swift flier, but is often not able to catch asmaller bird in a straightaway flight, especially if it resorts to dodging,at which the heavier bird is less adept. The shrike's usual method isto rise above its victim and dive down upon it, felling it to the groundwith a stunning blow from its powerful beak, which often proves fatalby breaking the little bird's neck or its back. The shrike follows it tothe ground immediately and, if necessary, kills the bird with a blowat the base of the skull or by biting through the vertebrae of the neck.Small birds often escape from such attacks by mounting higher andhigher in the air, so that the shrike cannot get above them, and thensuddenly darting downward into thick cover.Having killed its bird, the shrike seizes it by the neck or shouldersin either its bill or its claws, or both, and flies away with it. Mr. Floyd(1928) made a number of inquiries on this point and received repliesfrom 23 observers, 13 of whom reported that the prey is carried in thebill, 7 said in the claws, and 3 had seen both bill and claws used. Bysome one of these methods the bird is carried to the shrike's larder andimpaled on a thorn or a sharp stub on some tree or bush, on the barbof a barbed-wire fence, or some other similar point ; often the bird ishung by its neck in the acute angle of a fork in a branch or twig.Mice are hung up in the same way, to be immediately devoured or savedfor future reference. The feet and claws of the shrike are evidentlynot strong enough to hold the quarry firmly while it is being torn NORTHERN SHRIKE 121 apart, and some additional support is desirable; hence this characteris-tic habit. If the shrike is really hungry, its prey is gulped down al-most entirely, flesh, feathers, fur, and most of the bones, only a fewof the larger feathers and bones being discarded. These indigestibleportions of the food are disgorged later in the form of pellets, whichare often found where shrikes have been feeding. Edwin A. Masonsends me the following description of a pellet that he took from a bird-banding trap where a shrike had been feeding on a junco: "Includinga 10-mm. tip, or tail, the pellet was 40 mm. long and 10 mm. thick,consisting largely of matted feathers ; scattered through the mass couldbe seen small pieces of bone, some identifiable as from the skull, onetarsus with foot attached, and one fragment of bone obviously fromthe main body skeletal structure." A very brief period of time hadelapsed between the ingestion and the regurgitation of the indigestiblematerial.Mr. Floyd (1928) mentions "several pellets which measured fromhalf an inch long to one and one-eighth inches. They averaged three-eighths of an inch in diameter."The northern shrike often kills more mice or birds than it can useat once, to many of which it never returns, and these are left to dry orrot. It has been known repeatedly to enter a bird-banding trap, killall the birds in it, and not eat any of them. It sometimes dashes intoa flock of redpolls or goldfinches, knocking out several of them, per-haps for the mere sport of killing them. Mr. Floyd (1928) writes:"A shrike that was seen to enter an electric-car barn in pursuit of anEnglish Sparrow killed all the Sparrows in the barn, without thoughtof itself or pausing to eat any of its victims."In captivity it will eat almost any kind of raw meat, will kill livingbirds and eat them, or eat dead birds or mice, though it seems toprefer mice to any other food. It will come to a feeding station toeat suet or hamburg steak, even when live birds are in the vicinity.Dr. Charles W. Townsend (1933) says: "On a warm March day Iwatched a Shrike fly-catching from the top of a tree. He pursued alarge bee and missed it, but by a quick turn he caught it. * * *Once I saw two on March 9 hovering about the dry thatch-grass castup on the beach, apparently picking up flies and spiders."Behavior.?Much of the behavior of the northern shrike has beenreferred to above. The outstanding traits of this bloodthirsty rascalare boldness, fierceness, and savagery in its fearless and relentless pur-suit of its prey, utterly regardless of obstacles or the presence of man.Nuttall's (1832) historic account illustrates its audacity:Mr. J. Brown, of Cambridge, informs me that one of these birds had tlie boldnessto attack two Canaries in a cage, suspended one fine winter's daj' at the window.The poor sonjjsters in their fears flnttcred to the side of the c;ige, and one of themthrust his liead through the bars of las prison ; at this instant the wily Butcher843290?50 9 122 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMtore off its head, and loft the body dead in the cage. * * * On another occa-sion, while a Mr. Lock in this vicinity was engaged in fowling, he wounded aRobin, who flew a little distance and descended to the ground; he soon heardthe disabled bird uttering unusual cries, and on approaching found him in thegrasp of tlie Shrike.He snatched up the bird from its devourer; but having tasted blood, it stillfollowed, as if determined not to relinquish its proposed prey, and only desistedfrom the quest on receiving a mortal wound.Dr. Brewer (Baird, Brewer, and Eidgway, 1874) writes : Its bold audacity and perseverance are quite remarkable, and are often dis-played, in the fall, in the manner in which it will enter an apartment throughan open window and attack a Canary, even in the presence of members of thefamily. * * * in one instance the writer was sitting at a closed windowreading, with a Canary hanging above him. Suddenly there was a severe blowstruck at the pane of glass near the cage, and the frightened Canary utteredcries of alarm and fell to the bottom of its cage. The cause was soon explained.A Shrike had dashed upon the bird, unconscious of the intervening glass, andwas stretched upon the snow under the window, stunned by the blow. He re-vived when taken up, and lived several days, was sullen, but tame, and utterlydevoid of fear.Mr. Floyd (1928) writes: "Northern Shrikes are particularly de-structive and annoying about a feeding or banding station. Theiraudacity is well known. They do not hesitate to seize a bird newlybanded when it flies from the bander's hand, and they enter a trap,barn, room, or hen-house with absolute unconcern when birds or miceare seen there. In the trap they kill all the birds there before con-sidering how they may escape or pausing to eat." He says that, "whenintent upon the capture of its next meal, the Shrike loses all sense offear of man," and tells how Mrs. Richard B. Harding ^vas unable todrive one away from the vicinity of her trap, in which there were somebirds, "and only after she secured a broom and actually struck at theintruder several times, did it give up and abandon the premises."In its summer home in Labrador, the northern shrike seemed to bevery tame, and we saw no signs of aggressiveness toward the few smallbirds that live there; probably it was living largely on insects. OnAugust 18, 1912, 1 watched one for some time in Dr. Hettasch's smallgarden and in the woods around it. It was flying in its direct slowflight from one tree to another, or perching on a topmost twig, its bodyheld erect, and flirting its tail up and down, or holding it straight outbehind horizontally. Occasionally it darted out from its perch tochase some flying insect, or dropped down to the lower branches of alarch, where it seemed to be feeding on the buds and tender shoots,though probably it was finding insects there. When making a longerflight to a more distant tree, it flew more swiftly in a slightly undulat-ing course, alternating a few rapid wing strokes with downward glidesin woodpeckerlike curves. If flying lovv', as it often did, as if to keep NORTHERN SHRIKE 123behind cover, it would suddenly swoop upward in an abrupt curve toreach its perch on a treetop. Occasionally, it would hover like a spar-row hawk over an open space, as if looking for mice or insects.Francis H. Allen says in his notes : "A shrike I watched mousingover river meadows in Millis, Mass., January 25, 1931, hunted mainlyby hovering. It would start off with two or three bounds in the airand then rise almost vertically for perhaps six to ten feet?that ispractically vertically at the top of the rise?and then hover for sometime, turning its head from left to riglit to scan the grassy marsh.It was a very pretty performance."Wendell Taber tells me of a rather unusual action that he saw : "xis it sat on a twig the bird suddenly jumped to another twig slightlyto one side and somewhat lower. I estimated the horizontal distanceat about eight inches and the vertical descent at about six inches.The jump was accomplished entirely by leg and body motion, with(he wings remaining folded throughout. The branch on which thebird landed was strong enough, so that no visible motion took placeunder the impact of the bird's landing."I have never seen a northern shrike on the ground, nor can I findanything in the literature as to its method of progression there. Itmust jump or hop vigorously in pursuit of grasshoppers or crickets.Dr. Miller (1031) says that "loggerhead shrikes hop but do not walk.In moving sideways or backward one foot is moved independently ofthe other. AVhile hopping, the body is held erect and the head heldhigh unless the bird is engaged in investigating objects close to theground." Probably the northern shrike progresses in a similarmanner.Voice.?I did not hear the northern shrike sing in Labrador. Thesinging season had evidently passed, as the young birds were fullygrown and the molting season was at hand. The only notes I heardwere a variety of twittering, chattering, squealing, or whistling notes,with occasional gurgling warbles in soft tones. Other observers ofLabrador birds do not mention its song.The males, and sometimes the females, have often been heard sing-ing at various times during their sojourn in the United States andmuch has been written about it. Aretas A. Saunders writes to me: "I first heard it many years ago in March, before I kept definite notesof singing. The only records I find of hearing the song in late yearsare November 8, 1921, March 25, and April 8, 1922. It is a long-continued song, suggesting that of the mockingbird, but containingmore harsh notes."Francis H. Allen describes it in his notes as a "song of indeterminatelength, composed of caws and scraping notes and short, very pleasingliquid trills, with occasional whistling notes. The notes may be 124 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM single and staccato, or given in series of three or four in the mannerof a mockingbird. The whole is a formless, disjointed performance.When fleeing from an attacking crow, a shrike sounded a prolongedrattle of high-pitched 'beady' notes?like 'pip-fip-in'p-'pi'p^ etc, ut-tered very rapidly."Eugene P. Bicknell (1884) writes:I have beard a variety of notes from it in October, on its first arrival, and inNovember; but its highest vocal achievement is in late winter and earlyspring. * * * An unusually vocal bird was observed on February 10, 1877? a morning when winter seemed quietly relaxing from long-continued severity.Perclied in the sunlight, on the topmost spray of a tall oak, on an eminencecommanding an expanse of changing landscape, it was alternately singing andpi-eening its beautiful plumage. The song was a medley of varied and ratherdisconnected articulations, an occasional low warble always being quickly ex-tinguished by harsh notes, even as the bird's gentle demeanor would soon beinterrupted by some deed of cruelty.Frederic H. Kennard records in his notes the capture of a singingshrike on his grounds, and says : "I heard its warble, but having seena robin before I saw the shrike, I thought it must be a young robinpracticing, so like were the notes. I thought, however, that the youngrobin was mighty hoarse, so went to investigate. On dissection, thissinging shrike proved to be a female." A similar experience is thusrecorded by Dr. Arthur Chadbourne (1890) : "On the morning ofApril 8, 1890, when walking through the Fresh Pond Swamps atCambridge, I heard a Butcher Bird {Lanius horealis) in full song.The bird was an usually fine singer, and quite a mimic, its medley ofnotes suggesting a combination of the Brown Thrasher and the BlueJay, with an occasional 'mewing' sound much like the commonCatbird. It w\as shot, and on sexing proved a female, the ovary beingconsiderably enlarged."Several other observers have referred to the shrike's power ofmimicry. Mr. Forbush (1929) adds the song sparrow to those namedabove, and says : "One day Mr. Wm. C. Wheeler, who can imitate manybird songs, whistled the song of a Robin as he approached a NorthernShrike. The bird immediately mocked his rendition of the song, andrepeated it after him thrice."Field marks.?Shrikes look superficially somewhat like chunkymockingbirds with thick heavy heads and bills, but there is a blackband on the head, through and behind the eye ; in the adult shrike theback is clearer, gull gray, browner in the young, and the breast isvermiculated with dusky ; there is also much less white in the wingsand tail; the latter is proportionately shorter than in the mocking-bird. Its posture and behavior are quite different. The loggerheadshrike is slightly smaller and is purer gray above and whiter belowthan the northern shrike.Enemies.?The worst enemy that the northern shrike ever encoun- NORTHERN SHRIKE 125(ered was the man with the gun on Boston Common, who killed over50 of the birds in a single winter, many years ago, to protect theEnglish sparrows soon after their importation. The tables are turnednow, for one of the best things the shrike does is to help reduce thenumbers of this ubiquitous foreigner, so the shrikes are now welcomedin the cities.Harold S. Peters (1930) lists only one louse, Ph'dopterus sui-fiavescens, as an esternal parasite on the northern shrike.Whiter.?The northern shrike comes southward to spend the winterin varying numbers at more or less regular intervals, depending prob-ably on the variations in its food supply in its summer home. Some-times it is abundant in New England in winter, sometimes rare, andsometimes entirely absent or very local. They were reported as veryabundant in the winter of 1878-79. Mr. Floyd (1928) called atten-tion to a decided invasion in the winter of 102G-27, in Maine, NewHampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut,New York, and New Jersey, and they were unusually plentiful inNova Scotia. He corresponded with bird-banders from New Englandto Virginia and learned that "during the six months from October toApril, sixty-two Shrikes were reported destroyed by banders, whileeight were banded and released." He attempted to learn whether theabundance of shrikes coincided with the heavy invasions of redpolls,siskins, and other small northern birds, on which the shrike mightprey, but the data accmnulated did not confirm this theory; in fact,there was only one year out of eight in which the small birds andshrikes were both abundant.David E. Davis (1937) has made a study of this subject and saysin his interesting paper on it : The Northern Shrike {Lanius doreaUs lorealis) has attracted attention byits occurrence in New England and adjoining States, in large numbers in certainyears. Since the species is predatory, a correlation with the well-known cycle ofmice (Microtus spp., Dicrostonyx spp.) was suspected. * * * ^ thoroughexamination of the available literature was made for records concerning shrikeinvasions. It was soon apparent that the Christmas Bird Census in "Bird-Lore"supplied the only data which could be used to compare one year with another.These records are here presented in a graph showing the number of birdsobserved per census for each Christmas period. * * * That there is a defi-nite cycle is at once apparent from the graph. The average is 4.2 years. Itshould be noted that there are two five-year periods and no three-year periods.The winters of maximum abundance are 1900-01; 1905-00; 1909-10; 191.3-14;1917-18 ; 1921-22 ; 192G-27 ; 19;]0-31 ; 1934-85. That there was a maximum in thewinter of 1900-01 is supported by Brewster (190G) who states that shrikes werenot seen in 1902, 1903, or 1904, but were rather common in 1901. * * * itis quite obvious that the mice increase and periodically die out. During theincrease of mice, the predators likewise increase. * * * When the micedisappear the predators first exhaust other prey and then either migrate ordie. 126 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMDISTRIBUTIONRange.?In the Eastern Hemisphere: to the limit of trees fromNorway to western Siberia; in winter south to central France, north-ern Italy, western Rumania, and central Russia. In America, fromAlaska and northern Canada to the central part of the United States.Breeding range.?The American races of the northern shrike breednorth to the limit of trees in northern Alaska (Lower Noatak River,Kobuk Valley, and Seward Creek near Circle) ; central Yukon (Ogil-vie Range) ; northern ISIackenzie (Fort McPherson, Fort Anderson,McVicar Bay on Great Bear Lake, and Fort Reliance) ; northernManitoba (Lac du Brochet and Cliurchill) ; and northern Quebec(Chimo). East to northern Quebec (Chimo and Indian HouseLake) ; and Labrador (Lake Melville and the east coast). Southto Labrador (Lake Melville) ; central Quebec (possibly AnticostiIsland, Lake Abitibi) ; northern Ontario (Moose Factory and FortSevern, probably; casually to Ottawa and Toronto) ; central Sas-katchewan (Prince Albert and Carlton House; casually to Qu'Ap-pelle) ; northern Alberta ( Athabaska Delta) ; northern British Colum-bia (Thudade Lake and Atlin) ; southwestern Yukon (near BurwashLanding) ; and southern Alaska (Homer, mouth of the ChulitnaRiver, and Nushagak). West to western Alaska (Nushagak, Kig-luaik, and the Noatak River).Winter range.?The northern shrike probably winters occasionallynearly as far north as it breeds but winter records from much of thatregion are scarce. In the southern part of its winter range it is quiteirregular, and it is likely that its southward wanderings are in searchof food. Insofar as actual records go, this shrike winters north tocentral Alaska (Flat, Toklat River, and Chilkat) ; central BritishColumbia (Francois Lake and probably Thudade Lake) ; centralAlberta (Belvedere, Edmonton, and Camrose) ; central and south-ern Saskatchewan (Cochin and Lake Johnstone) ; southern Manitoba(Aweme, Lake St. Martin, and Hillside Beach, Lake Winnipeg) ;central Quebec (Great Whale River, Quebec, and Bonavcnture Is-land) ; and northern Newfoundland (Hare Bay) . East to Newfound-land (Hare Bay, Salmonier, and Tompkins) ; Nova Scotia (Anti-gonish and Bridgetown) ; New Brunswick (Grand Manan) ; the NewEngland States and Long Island (Orient) ; and occasionally centralNew Jersey (Morristown and Barnegat Bay). South to centralNew Jersey (Barnegat) ; southeastern Pennsylvania (Philadelphia,occasionally) ; Maryland (Baltimore) ; District of Columbia, rarely:North Carolina, rare or accidental (Pea Island) ; West Virginia("VMiite Sulphur Springs, rarely; northern Ohio (Salem, Oberlin,and Toledo) ; occasionally southern Indiana (Bloomington and Vin-cennes) ; rarely southern Illinois (Mount Carmel) ; central Missouri NORTHERN SHRIKE 127(St. Louis, St. Charles, and Columbia) ; soiitliern Kansas (Wichitaand Coolidge) ; accidental at Fayetteville and Van Buren, Ark., andat Decatur, Tex.; soutli-central Colorado (Pueblo, Colorado Springs,and Salida) ; northern Utah (Ogden) ; central western Nevada(Reese River, Lahontan Valley, and Carson) ; and northern Cali-fornia (Rolands Marsh and Marysville) ; also occurs rarely or acci-dentally south to north central New Mexico (Las Vegas and SantaFe) ; central Arizona (Flagstaff and Prescott), southwestern Utah(St. George), and central California (Sacramento). West to cen-tral California (Marysville) ; western Oregon (Grants Pass, Cor-vallis, and Blaine) ; western Washington (Seattle, Sequin, and Bel-lingham) ; western British Columbia (Crescent, Courtney, and Fran-cois Lake) ; and Alaska (Chilkat, Bethel, Akiak, and Flat).The above ranges for the species in North America are divided intotwo geographic races. The northern shrike {L. b. Ijorealis) breedseast of Hudson Bay; the northwestern shrike {L. h. invictus) breedsfrom Alaska to Manitoba.Migration.?From the available records the northern shrike appearsto be quite irregular in its migratory movements. Dates of spring de-parture are: Pennsylvania?Harrisburg, March 10. New York ? New York, April 17. Massachusetts?Harvard, April 4. MaineWells, April 26. Ontario?Ottawa, April 18. Ohio?Oberlin, April3. JMichigan?Grand Rapids, March 29. Iowa?Grinnell, March 31.Wisconsin?New London, March 23. Kansas?Manhattan, ISIarch29. Nebraska?Neligh, ;March 31. South Dakota?Vermillion,March 28. North Dakota?Charlson, March 12. Manitoba?Mar-garet, April 6. Saskatchewan?Indian Head, April 21. ColoradoYuma, April 4. Wyoming?Laramie, April 15. Montana?Boze-man, April 3. Washington?Pullman, April 8. British ColumbiaOkanagan Landing, April 20.Early dates of spring arrival are: Mackenzie?Fort Liard, April 2.British Columbia?Atlin, April 18. Alaska?Fairbanks, March 31.Late dates of fall departure arc: Alaska?Bethel, November 7.Yukon?Forty Mile, October 12. Mackenzie?Simpson, October 12.British Columbia?i^tlin, October 12.Early dates of fall arrival are : British Columbia?Chilliwack, Sep-tember 27. Washington?Tacoma, October 11. Montana?Fortine,September 27. Wyoming?Yellowstone National Park, October 15.Colorado?Colorado Springs, October 2. Saskatchewan?Eastend,October 2. Manitoba?Aweme, October 3. North Dakota?Argus-ville, October 16. South Dakota?Pierre, October 21. NebraskaLincoln, October 27. Kansas?Onaga, October 19. MinnesotaLanesboro, October 18. Wisconsin?La Crosse, October 18. IowaKeokuk, October 19. Michigan?Sault Ste. Marie, October 9. Il-linois?Glen Ellyn, October 24. Ontario?Toronto, October 15. 128 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMOhio?Youngstown, October 16. Pennsylvania?Erie, September 21.Maine?Phillips, October 19. New Brunswick?Scotch Lake, Octo-ber 17. Massachusetts?Danvcrs, October 31. New York?Orient,October 22. District of Columbia?Washington, November 7.From the few banded northern shrikes the two recoveries availableare of some interest. One banded at Hepburn, Saskatchewan, on July4, 1931, was found dead on September 23, 1931, at Cross Timbers, Mo.-;and another banded at Harwich, Mass., on November 8, 1934, was founddead about April 1, 1936, at Clarenceville, Quebec.Casual records^.?Eight specimens have been collected in Ber-muda: October 31, 1846; January 23, 1847; March 12, 1850; January1872; January 1, 1876; and three without dates.Egg dates.?Alaska : 2 records, May 21 and June 27.Labrador : 3 records, June 3 to 17.Mackenzie : 3 records. May 20 to June 11.LANIUS BOREALIS INVICTUS GrinncllNORTHWESTERN SHRIKEHABITSThis western race of the northern shrike was described by Dr.Joseph Grinnell (1900) , who says of it : L. horealis invictus differs from L. borealis borcalis in larger size, paler colora-tion dorsally and greater extent of white markings. These differences are fairlycomparable to those between the southwestern L. liidovicianus exculiitoridcs andL. ludovicianus proper. * * ?During the fall the Northwestern Shrike was met with in the Kowak Valleyrather sparingly. Single individuals would be seen, one or two in a day's tramp,in the willow bottoms where they were the terror of the redpolls. On only oneoccasion did I see more than one in a place. * * * None were seen afterOctober 2Gtb, until March 22nd, when one was secured. During April and Maythey became fairly common, that is, for shrikes.Harry S. Swarth (1926) was evidently not greatly impressed withthe wisdom of recognizing this race. He found that there are Alas-kan birds "that lie well within the range of variation of eastern birds,and there are one or two eastern birds with white markings on tlic tailfeathers nearly as extensive as in any western ones." After examin-ing a series of over 80 specimens, about equally divided between east-ern and western birds, he writes : "There are a number of winter birdsin this series from points lying between the Great Lakes and the KockyMountains, and nearly all of these I am unable to allocate to an easternor a western race with any degree of assurance. Thus, while recog-nizing in the northern shrike a tendency toward development of thecharacters ascribed to invictus in the western part of its habitat, itseems to me so impossible to define the boundary between an easternand a western race, or to identify most winter birds taken south of NORTHWESTERN SHRIKE l29the breeding range, that 1 am disinclined to use diiferent names forthe variations exhibited."Dr. Alden H. Miller (1931) does not agree with the above, saying: "I cannot agree with Swarth (1926, pp. 135, 13G) that it is impossibleto define the boundary between the eastern and western races of thisspecies, difficult as it is to identify some winter specimens. The boun-dary line between the breeding ranges is poorly knovvn, I believe, onlyas a result of the extremely meagre collections of breeding birds fromcritical localities."His distributional map shows an area of intergradation from thewest coast of Hudson Bay westward for breeding birds, and directlysouthward from that area into the United States for wintering birds.It is interesting to note that this is just where one would expect to findthe intergrades that Mr. Swarth had difficulty in identifying! Hesays that "an immature specimen from Fort Churchill, Manitoba,taken in July may be considered intermediate between the two racesalthough its dimensions are those of invictus.''^ This seems to demon-strate, as satisfactorily as our present knowledge will allow, that in-victus is the breeding form from this point westward.Nesting.?Neither Dr. Grinnell nor Mr. Swarth found a nest of thisshrike, but Roderick MacFarlane (1908) took a fine nest of the north-western shrike at Fort Anderson, northern Mackenzie, on June 11,1863 ; it was in a spruce tree, 7 feet from the ground ; he describes itquite fully, as follows : It is in many respects in striking contrast with the nests of its kindred speciesof the Southern States of the Union, far exceeding them in its reh^tive size, inL'lahorate finish, and warmth. It is altogether a remarkable example of whatis known as felted nests, whose various materials are most elaborately mattedtogether into a homogeneous and symmetrical whole. It is seven inches in diam-eter and three and one half in height. The cavity is proportionately large anddeep, having a diameter of four and one-half inches and a depth of two. Exceptthe base, which is composed of a few twigs and stalks of coarse plants, the nest ismade entirely of soft and warm materials most elaborately iuterworked together.These materials are feathers from various birds, fine down of the eider and otherducks, fine mosses and lichens, slender stems, grasses, etc., and are skilfully andartistically wrought into a beautiful and symmetrical nest, strengthened by theinterposition of a few slender twigs and stems without affecting the general felt-like character of the whole.Several nests have been reported, from the more southern portionsof Canada, as placed in deciduous trees, but these were probably extralarge nests of white-rumped or migrant shrikes.There is a beautiful nest of this shrike, taken by Johan Koren inAlaska on May 21, 1913, in the Thayer collection in Cambridge. It is abulky nest, nearly 9 inches in external diameter and about 4 inches inheight ; the inner cup is over 4 inches in diameter and 2i/^ inches deep.It is made of coarse grasses and weed stalks, inner bark, and plant 130 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMdown, reinforced with fine and coarse twigs, and thoroughly mixedthroughout with Vv'hite ptarmigan feathers, with which it is also pro-fusely lined, forming a soft, warm bed. It was placed 12 feet from theground in a cottonwood tree and contained the unusual number of ninehandsome eggs.W. E. Clyde Todd has sent me the following note from Arthur C.Twomey : "A nest of this shrike was found on June 20, 1942, on theouter fringe of the transitional willow community that divides theconiferous forest from the true tundra. It was located six miles westof the southwest tip of Richards Island, Mackenzie River Delta,N. W. T., Canada. The nest was in a dense growth of willows abouttwelve feet from the ground. It was a large, bulky structure made upof dead willow twigs, dry sedges, grasses, and strips of willow bark.It had a deep inner cavity that was completely lined with a half inchlayer of winter ptarmigan feathers. The five half-incubated eggswere well insulated against the rapidly changing temperatures."Eggs.?The nest described above by MacFarlane (1908) containedsix eggs, and he reports another nest that contained eight. The eggsare evidently indistinguishable from those of the northern shrike.He describes them as "of a light greenish ground, marbled andstreaked with blotches of obscure purple, clay colour and rufousbrown." The measurements of 14 eggs average 27.3 by 20.4 milli-meters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 28.1 by 20.0,27.3 by 21.0, 26.3 by 20.7, and 26.5 by 20.0 millimeters.Young.?In the Atlin region of northern British Columbia, Mr.Swarth (1926) collected a brood of six young, "just able to fly," onJune 30. "The young birds, huddled together in a spruce thicket,were being fed by one parent, which escaped. * * * The youngbirds were extremely noisy; it was the incessant squalling for foodthat drew our attention, from a distance. Their stomachs were wellfilled, mostly with insect remains, including some small Coleoftera;in one stomach there were parts of a very young ptarmigan chick,including the bill."Plumages.?Mr. Swarth (1920) writes: "A notable feature of theshrikes in juvenal plumage is their gray coloration. In the freshlyacquired first winter plumage there is a decidedly brown tone bothabove and below, but, save for the wing markings, none of this ap-pears in the juvenal stage. This plumage is mostly clear gray,slightly darker on the dorsum, and finely vermiculated below."An adult male, collected on July 28, "is in the midst of the annualmolt. Above and below the old feathers are extremely pale colored.The underparts are almost pure white, the old feathers having lostevery vestige of the dusky vermiculations. Such markings showplainly enough on the new breast feathers, just coming in."Food.?Dv. Grinnell (1900) saw a northwestern shrike "carrying LOGGERHEAD SHRIKE 131prey to a clump of spruces further up the channel where there musthave been a brood of young. On one occasion the bird was carryinga redpoll, but usually it was a lemming or meadow mouse. Once hehad grasped in his claws a lemming so heavy that it dragged in thewater as the bird flew laboriously across the river." The stomachof an adult collected by Mr. Swarth (11)2G) held insect remains.Behavior.?Ernest T. Seton (1911) writes:One afternoon I heard a peculiar note, at first like the "cheepy-teet-tecV ofthe Pine Grosbeak, only louder and more broken, changing to the jingling ofBhiekbirds in spring, mixed with some Bluejay "jay-jays," and a Robin-likewhistle; then I saw that it came from a Northern Shrike on the bushes justahead of ns. It flew off much after the manner of the Summer Shrike, withllight not truly uudulatory nor yet straight, but Happing half a dozen times?thena pause and repeat. He would dive down nf ar the ground, then up with a finedisplay of wings and tail to the next perch selected, there to repeat with freshvariations and shrieks, the same strange song, and often indeed sang it onthe wing, until at last he crossed the river.S. F. Rathbun (1931) says: "On one occasion we paced this shrikein flight. For more than a mile the bird flew alongside the road orover it and in front of us as we drove, at no time distant more thanone hundred feet. The shrike was flying at the rate of tliirty-twomiles when we first contacted it, but as we kept up Avith it the birdimperceptibly increased its speed to forty-two miles, and once for aninstant reached forty-five miles. "This test was very fair. There was no wind blowing, and theshrike maintained an almost direct flight either in front of, or nearlyat the side of the automobile."LANmS LUDOVICIANUS LUDOVICIANUS LinnaeusLOGGERHEAD SHRIKEHABITSCONTETBUTED BY ALEXANDER SpKUNT, Jr.Among the earliest ornithological memories of the writer is thesearch for nests of the "French mockingbird" amid the myrtle bushesof the back beach of Sullivans Island, near Charleston, S. C. On thisnarrow barrier of sea sand, which has figured so largely in historysince the days when Sir Peter Parker's fleet was turned away by thebatteries of palmetto-logged Fort Moultrie, many Low Country birdrecords have helped make ornithological fame locally. It was a happyhunting ground for several kindred spirits of schoolboy days, andbirds' eggs were mediums of exchange for various and sundry otherspecimens of beach and marsh. In few other areas since has thewriter ever found the loggerhead shrike such a characteristic birdand will always associate it with this spot for it was among the first 132 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMhalf dozen species of liis "life list." Thongli having shown it to manyothers for their "first" since, long acquaintance with it has not dimmedinterest in its attractive way of life.Misunderstood and rather frov/ned upon by the uninformed, theloggerhead is one of the decidedly beneficial and valuable birds of itsrange and its activities are a natural asset of no mean proportions.As its name implies, it was described from Louisiana, by Linnaeus, butthe bird is no more typical of that State than many other parts of itshabitat.Spring.?There is little change in the seasonal numbers of theloggerhead in most of its range except in the northern limits. Else-where the population remains largely static as the species is residentthroughout most of the country it frequents. Certainly, numbers incoastal South Carolina, Georgia, most of Florida, and the Gulf coastdo not vary appreciably. In North Carolina (eastern) there is aslight southward movement in fall and a return in spring but it is notpronounced. Some confusion may exist in that State by the overlap-ping occurrence of L. I. migrans and the difficulty of differentiatingbetween the tMo in the field. That both ludovicianus and migransoccur together there has been demonstrated by T. D. Burleigh, whosecured specimens of each at Tarboro, Edgecombe County, N. C, inJanuary 1931 (Pearson and Brimley, 1912).Courtship.?^The courtship performance is not particularly elab-orate or widely commented upon. It is undertaken with much flutter-ing of the wings and some spreading of the tail in display on the partof the male. Considerable erratic chases of the female occur at times,the birds twisting and turning almost like sandpipers over the surf,for apparently the female does not take very kindly to watching themale display at length.Audubon (1842) was somewhat cavalier in his opinion of this phaseof the loggerhead's way of life. He says flatly that "the male courtsthe female without much regard, and she, in return, appears to re-ceive his haughty attentions with merely just as much condescensionas enables her to become the mother of a family, whose feelings aredestined to be of the same cold nature." He follows this later in hisaccount with a quotation from the Rev. John Bachman as follows:"You speak of the male showing but little attachment to the female.I have thought differently, and so would you were you to watch himcarrying * * * a grasshopper or cricket to her, pouncing uponthe Crow and even the Buzzard, that approach the nest, and invariablydriving these intruders away. Indeed I consider these birds as evi-dencing great attachment toward each other."Living in the same area from which Dr. Bachman wrote thesewords, and where he saw so much of the loggerhead, the writer agrees LOGGERHEAD SHRIKE 133with him completely. He has never noted any trait that would tend toprove that the loggerhead was lacking in domestic responsibility.Nesting.?This species is an early nester, even in regions where earlynesting is indulged by other avian forms. It is another point of simi-larity to the birds of prey, for the loggerhead is decidedly reminiscentof that order in many ways. Though Florida shows the earliest datesfor nesting (which is to be expected) there is not a great deal of dif-ference between it and coastal South Carolina or Georgia. In all ofthese the loggerhead sometimes begins nest-building in February, butMarch is more nearly normal.Arthur H. Howell (1932) lists February 9 as an early Florida rec-ord, this nesting being near Gainesville. The birds usually begin tobuild in the Lake Okeechobee region late in February, and are incu-bating during the first week of March. In the Pensacola area (muchto the north and west) the latter part of March is more typical, andF. M. Weston (MS.) states that the first brood is raised by "earlyApril." Nests with eggs found by him in mid-May he says are "al-most certainly a second brood." Similar dates are typical of south-ern Georgia. Fresh eggs on or after the middle of May in eitherregion are doubtless a second laying.C. H. Pangburn (1919) believes that the loggerhead is the thirdcommonest nesting bird in Pinellas County, Fla., and that the youngare flying the last week in March. S. A. Grimes (1928) puts it sec-ond in the Jacksonville area, outnumbered only by the mockingbird.Dr. E. E. Murphey, of Augusta, Ga., has a nesting date of Marchat that locality. Arthur T. Wayne (1919) states that he was in-formed by G. R. Rossignol that the latter found a nest and five eggsat Savannah on February 15, 1919. Nest-building by this pair beganon January 16. Tliis is a very early date and may be considered theearliest Georgia record.Nesting in South Carolina in some years varies little from that inFlorida. Wayne (1910) has noted birds mated by mid-February andsays that nests are often built late that month. Bad weather in Marchfrequently delays nest construction, however, and not infrequentlythe birds abandon original efforts and start new nests. Average timefor the Charleston region is late in March. Files of the CharlestonMuseum show that incubating birds were found by F. M. Weston onMarch 18, 1913, and March 19, 1911. Wayne's earliest breeding rec-ord was March 13, 1917. The writer found a nest with five fresheggs on March 28, 1914. While living in the city of Charleston hewas accustomed to find nests of this species every year on the street infront of his home. There was a line of small live-oak trees plantedthere (the area was all "made" land, having been reclaimed from theAshley River) , and their thick, tough twigs were ideal nesting sites. 134 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM >One tree, about 12 or 15 feet liigli, across the street from liis house,always had a nest in it every season, and in 1924 one was built andthe young raised by mid-April. On June 22 another nest was builtin the same tree about 5 feet from the first one (same pair of birdsdoubtless), which was still in excellent condition. H. K. Job visitedthe writer while the first nest was in use and photographed it.In the nortliern rim of its range (eastern Xorth Carolina) the log-gerhead nests noticeably later than elsewhere. T. Gilbert Pearsonand the Brimleys (1942) list fresh eggs as having been found in Co-lumbus County on May 6, in Bladen County, May 7, completed nestsbut no eggs. At the same date, however, young just out of the nestwere seen ! Probably late April would be normal for many breedingpairs, just about one month later than South Carolina birds. Again,at the western terminus of its range the loggerhead is late. Dr. H. C.Oberholser (1938) states that "it breeds in Louisiana from April toJune, and there is record of eggs as early as April 16." If the latteris an early date for Louisiana it is obvious that the loggerhead is farbehind its eastern dates in its western home.Tlie nest itself is built at medium elevations, never very high andseldom close to the ground ; 8 to 15 feet is normal. It picks out heavilytwigged growth, though its early habits often reveal the nest to anyobserver as it is completed before the leaves come out. Young oaksare favorites, and these, of course, retain their leaves. Such treesare widely used in coastal South Carolina, and the species often nestsin towns and cities, even on streets carrying considerable traffic.The loggerhead is a good architect and builder. Though somewhatbulky, the nest is well made and lasts long after its usefulness is over.The materials are usually thick twigs, firmly woven and lined withrootlets or fibers and, in the rural sections, often padded with cotton.The latter is a characteristic item among a varied range of material.Others are string (often used), feathers of various kinds, hair, pal-metto fiber, weeds, small sticks, grass, "rabbit-tobacco" (everlasting),rags, and occasionally paper. M. G. Vaiden, of Eosedale, Miss. (MS.) , once found a piece of blue bottle glass in a nest ! Both sexes work on the nest and ver}'^ assiduously. Incubation con-sumes 10 to 12 days, and both male and female engage in the duty.S. A. Grimes (1928) gives 14 days for incubation.E. K. Ford (1936) gives an account of an unusual nesting site withregard to elevation, which he found at Fort Lauderdale, Fla., onMarch 5. Tlie birds began building that day "on one of the lowerbranches of a long-leafed yellow pine. The site was a little morethan fifty feet from the ground. * * * Except on one occasion,I had never seen the nest of any Shrike more than eight or ten feetup, [and] I made it a point to observe this one particularly." Thisheight is very abnormal and can be considered the extreme. LOGGERHEAD SHRIKE 135Two broods are usually raised, though in coastal South Carolinathere are often three in a season. It is interesting to note that Audu-bon's (1842) account is contradictory in that he says in the early partof his biography of the species that "loggerheads rear only one broodin the season" and later, quoting Rev. John Bachman, that "this speciesbreeds twice in a season." The latter is the correct statement, apply-ing to the greater part of the range.An example of what amounts to practically colony nesting of theloggerhead is furnished by M. G. Vaiden, of Rosedale, j\'Iiss. He says(MS.) that on April 9, 1937, he was driving near the site of the oldtown of Concordia (Miss.) now inundated by the river. Along thelevee was a hedgerow of dwarf thorn bushes or small trees {Crataegusuniflora), and shrikes were noted flying in and out of them. Carefulinvestigation revealed that nearly every tree held occupied nests, and14 were found in 13 trees! Eight nests contained eggs; the otherswere either just completed or still building. Eggs were found in thema few days later. This is a remarkable observation, and the writerhas never heard it approached, but Mr. Vaidon says that he once sawanother similar instance. This was the finding of seven nests in thorntrees along an unused road also in Mississippi. No two nests weremore than 60 feet apart, and it Avas not over 200 feet from the first tothe last nest in a straight line down the road. The writer has oftenfound two or three loggerhead nests in trees fairly close together, thedistance of a city block for instance, but never anything that wouldjustify an illustration of colony nesting.S. A. Grimes (1928) gives an interesting observation of communaluse of the same nest by loggerheads as follows : A nest about eight feet up in an oak, found March 15th, 1925, was built on athrasher nest of the preceding year. Revisiting this nest a week later, I wasmuch astonished to find seven eggs in it, and two broken eggs on the ground below.The eggs were obviously not all laid by the same bird, for five were of a darkground color and minutely speckled with dark brown, whereas the set of four,two of which were on the ground, were of a much lighter ground color * * *and there were three solicitous Loggerheads berating me on all sides. This wasa plain case of avian bigamy. The nest was destroyed a night or two later,apparently by someone's treacherous house cat. Within a day or two, the "pair"began making a new nest fifteen feet up in a pine sapling * * *. On April5th, this nest held five dark eggs and one light egg. Nine days later it containedthree light-colored eggs and only four of the dark variety, and in the grass beneathwere two of the less densely speckled eggs. This nest subsequently met the fateof the first. At least nineteen eggs, but from them not one Loggerhead to enhance,With futile loquacity and sprightliness, the attractiveness of a bit of shaded streetor tree-lined field.Efff/s.?[Author's note: The sets of ecrgs laid by the loggerheadshrike may consist of four to six eggs, though four and five are prob-ably commoner numbers than six. These are practically indistin-guishable from those of other races of the species, which are well de- 136 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM scribed under the California shrike. The measurements of 50 eggs ofthis southeastern race, in the United States National Museum, average24.2 by 18.7 millimeters ; the eggs showing the four extremes measure25.9 by 18.3, 23.6 by 19.9, 22.3 by 18.7, and 23.4 by 17.8 millimeters.]Flumages.?[Author's note : The sequence of molts and plumagesis the same as for the migrant shrike, to which the reader is referred.]Food.?The local name of the loggerhead in many localities, i. e.,'butcherbird, is indicative of the popular opinion of its food habits.However, popular opinion in this case, as in so many others, is oftenerroneous in its conclusions. The basis for the rather generally heldbelief that the species is injurious lies in the undoubted fact that itsometimes does take small birds. This habit, however, is not widelyor even generally indulged and is much more the exception than therule. The condemnation of the bird for it, therefore, is again remi-niscent of the treatment meted out to the birds of prey, so widespreadand detrimental to that gi'oup.In certain respects the loggerhead exhibits predatory habits, andif such a combination can be visualized it might be said to be a passerineraptor ! Not possessing talons with which to grip prey while feeding,it resorts to the well-known and thoroughly characteristic trait of im-paling its victims upon thorns, barbed wire, or other sharp projections ; hence the local name butcherbird.Naturally, what birds are taken are small ones. Little of definiteinformation appears in the literature regarding specific varieties, butthere is much generalization. Sparrows and warblers appear to makeup the bulk of small-bird prey. The writer has seen myrtle warblers{Dendroica coronata) victimized on at least two occasions, and Englishsparrows {Passer domesticus) are fairly often taken in cities andtowns, probably because of the ease with which they are secured.Wright and Harper (1913) relate that they saw a loggerhead chas-ing a red-cockaded woodpecker {Dryohates horcaUs) in the Okefeno-kee Swamp in southeastern Georgia and found the remains of oneyoung and one adult bluebird {Sialia sialis) on a stump, also the workof the shrike. Pearson and the Brimleys (1942) record the findingof the dried body of a myrtle Avarbler on a thorn by C. S. Brimlcy anda similarly treated chipping sparrow {Sjnzella passenna) by Pearson.The brains of the sparrow had been eaten from a cavity in the back ofthe skull. Observations by F. H. Craighill are quoted by these au-thors to the effect that he has seen "young birds" hanging in smallplum trees but apparently no identification was made of the young.Craighill is further quoted as saying : "Last week I saw a shrike pur-suing a small bird with evident felonious intent. I had never beforeseen that here [Rocky Mount, N. C] except when tliere w^as snow onthe ground and shrike food was scarce." Again, there is no identifica-tion of the "small bird." LOGGERHEAD SHRIKE 137H. L. Stoddard writes me that a shrike got into a banding trap ofone of his neighbors near Beachton, Ga., and killed a chipping spar-row. "The queer part of the tiling was that there was a stiff strawthrough the sparrow's neck," he says. "I went down and got the birdand found that the shrike had pinched at the neck and broken it inseveral places. The only explanation of the presence of the straw thatoccurs to me is that the instinct to hang prey on a twig or thorn is avery strong one. The shrike would have been unable to eat the spar-row in the usual way as there was no place in the trap to hang it (andshrikes are probably unable to hold prey in the feet as do birds ofprey). Hence it had worked the stiff straw through the neck in anattempt to anchor the bird for eating. At first glance this wouldseem impossible, but when we remember the skill in nest-building itdoes not seem so remarkable. The straw was stuck through betweenthe gullet and windpipe just above the breast in the exact spot whereshrikes usually hang the small birds they kill."E. G. Holt (1913) watched a loggerhead near Barachias, Ala., killa mockingbird {Mimus -polyglottos) . It was during a severe freeze,and the shrike attacked and pinned down the mocker, striking it re-peatedly with its beak and soon killing it. Holt tlien interruptedproceedings by picking up the dead bird and examining it; then, ashe held it in his outstretched hand, the shrike returned and attemptedto take it. Subsequent observation revealed that it removed themockingbird's entrails through a small hole above the kidneys.Loggerheads rather frequently incur the wrath of owners of canariesin attacks on these cage birds. When a cage is placed on a porch oianywhere outside, it seems to be an irresistible attraction to shrikesin the vicinity. When one alights on the cage it produces panic in thecanary, which, instead of remaining in the middle of the percli whereit would be perfectly safe, often sticks its head out between the bars.Thereupon it is clipped neatly off by the shrike, or so pierced by itsbeak that death is the result. The writer's mother lost three canariesin this way while summering on a beach resort near Charleston, S. C,a place where loggerheads were abundant.The food of the loggerhead is nearly entirely animal in character.Food of eastern shrikes is wholly of this category, though examina-tion of some of the western subspecies showed that vegetable matteramounted to 2.5 percent (F. E. L. Beal, 1912). Professor Beal'sresearches further revealed that the eastern bird shows a breakdownof 68 percent insects, 4 percent spiders, and 28 percent vertebrates.These studies were based on the contents of 88 stomachs. Distinctseasonal variation appears in the food take, for it has been establishedthat the warm seasons show a preponderance of insect prey secured,while in winter the greater part consists of mice and small birds.Among the insects the Orthoptera compose the largest item. Grass-843290?50 10 138 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL ]MUSEUMhoppers and crickets make up 39 percent. In August and Septemberthese constitute 70 percent of the total food, though they are takenin everj^ month of the year. Among the crickets, wliich are not soacceptable as grasshoppers, the so-called wood cricket is often taken,numbers of the genus Stenopelmatus being particularly noticeable.These insects usually live under leaves and stones and avoid light butnot to the extent of remaining undetected by the remarkable visionof the loggerhead.Beetles are eaten to the amount of somewhat in excess of 16 percent.Ground beetles (Carabidae) and carrion beetles (Silphidae) com-pose 7 percent of this total; tlie rest are harmful varieties. Antsand wasps are represented by only 3 percent, the latter outnumberingthe former. Moths and caterpillars form 4 percent. Bugs, flies, anda few other odd insects total 5 percent.Spiders make up 4 percent of the loggerhead's diet, while the verte-brates (28 percent) include manmials, birds, and reptiles. Of these,mice compose by far the bulk. A. H. Howell (1932) quotes Judd(1898) as saying that mice are taken "at all seasons and in wintercomprise half the food." He adds that "birds make up only 8 percentof the food for the year." Certainly, this predilection of the logger-head for mice, and the fact that half the winter food is made up ofthese animals, should go far to prove the great value of the shrike toagricultural interests. Audubon went tlie length of saying that mice "form the principal food of the grown birds at all seasons."Alexander Wilson (Wilson and Bonaparte, 1832) wrote that on therice plantations of Carolina and Georgia "it [the loggerhead] is pro-tected for its usefulness in destroying mice." He describes it as sit-ting near stacks of rice and "watching like a cat; and as soon as itperceives a mouse, darts on it like a Hawk." Evidently the logger-head was more appreciated in Carolina then than it is now.Occasionally, extraneous items appear in the shrike's food, orattacks are made on forms not usually associated with its diet. N. C.Longee, of Gainesville, Fla. (Howell, 1932), saw a shrike bring anumber of large, live cattle ticks to a barbed-wire fence and impalethem thereon. Howell once saw a lizard being eaten. F. M. Weston(MS.) states that he witnessed near Pensacola, Fla., the chase of abat by a shrike on "a bright summer day," but the animal eluded twoattacks and escaped. The writer has seen a loggerhead chase a batonce and failed to secure it. Weston adds that he once found a smallterrapin of "quarter-dollar size" that had been taken and impaled bya loggerhead. E. S. Dingle, of Huger, S. C, writes (MS.) that hesaw a loggerhead kill a frog, fly away with it in the beak for a shortdistance, and then transfer it to the feet in flight. The frog was car-ried about 200 feet in this manner to a live-oak tree.Audubon (1842) quotes the Rev. John Bachman as saying: "I have LOGGERHEAD SHRIKE 139 seen one [shrike] occupy liimself for hours in sticking up [onthorns] * * * a number of small fishes that the fishermen hadthrown on the shore * * *. The fishes dried up and decayed."Pearson and the Brimleys (19-12) give an interesting observationon a shrike "larder" in a residential section of High Point, GuilfordCounty, N. C. It was composed of "no less than fifteen small snakes"impaled on the thorns of a bush. They also state that F. H. Craig-hill, of Rocky Mount, N. C, found a loggerhead's cache of a snake,a crayfish, and a grasshopper.Alluding once more to its bird-killing propensities, observations byS. A. Grimes, of Jacksonville, Fla. (1928) , reveal that tlie loggerheads "take fledgling English Sparrows from their nests in holes made bywoodpeckers. Perched in the entrance, heedless of the frantic chatter-ing of the sparrows without, the Shrike, in each instance, appeared tobe having no little difficulty in seizing one of the young sparrows. Thesquealing victim was invariably held by the head. On one occasionthe struggling sparrow succeeded in freeing itself, but was recap-tured and promptly thrust on a barb of a nearby fence."Behavior.?The loggerhead presents a striking combination ofabsolute immobility and intense activity. To see one sitting on atelephone wire awaiting prey is to see a bird as motionless as if itwere cast in bronze. The next moment it may be dashing through theair like a winged meteor to pounce accurately upon a spot many yardsaway. These alternating periods of activity and inactivity are verycharacteristic.Essentially a bird of open country, it is a still hunter in the mainand always chooses an elevated and conspicuous perch. This maybe the topmost twig of a tree or bush, roadside wires or fences, orany such advantage giving a wide and uninterrupted view. CharlotteH. Green, however (1933), states that the bird has "another methodof hunting. Like the crows, he sometimes sneaks upon his victimfrom the ground." She gives no specific observation relating to suchprocedure, and it must be a rather uncommon occurrence. The writerhas never happened to witness it in his long experience with the species,and certainly it is not freely indulged.The vision of the loggerhead is phenomenal, even for a bird. Thatit can and does see insects at remarkable distances is unquestioned.When living in the Battery Section of Charleston in an area thenbeing developed residentially, the writer has often sat on the porchand v/atched loggerheads hunting in adjacent vacant lots. Frequentlya bird would pitch off the wires and glide, or fly, 50 to 70 yards in adirect line to a spot in the grasses and seize a grasshopper. No hov-ering or hesitancy is shown in these sudden dashes. The bird goesdirectly to a specific spot, and there is no doubt whatever that theintended prey was seen before the bird left the j)erch. 140 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL IVIUSEUMWeather affects the activity of the loggerhead because it reactson the food supply. S. A. Grimes (1928) says : "Two of the elementsgreatly facilitate the capturing of food for the Shrike. Heavy rainsdrive the subterranean inhabitants to the surface, where they areexposed to the bird's keen sight ; and the grass fire, routing number-less insects, form a veritable cornucopia for this and other species."Weather has adverse effects also as witnessed by F. M. Weston, ofPensacola, Fla., who says (MS.) : "After the prolonged freeze ofJanuary 1940, both shrikes and sparrow hawks {Falco sparverius)disappeared from this region for the rest of the winter." The ab-sence of two species sharing the same sort of food leads him to believethat intense and prolottged cold "did away with the winter insect liferight down to the grass roots" a most reasonable and logical conclu-sion.The flight of the loggerhead is accomplished by very rapid vibra-tions of the wings, an almost labored fluttering, it seems. It doesnot, however, give the impression of wasted energy. Periods of sail-ing intervene, and the course is usually at low elevations. When se-lecting a perch it sweeps upward to it in a steep glide. When leav-ing, it drops a few feet, then catches the air with the wings, and pro-ceeds with the characteristic rapid beats. The speed attained inflight has been given by Gordon Aymar (1935) at 22 to 28 m. p. h.based on "specific records."A sidelight on the flight is indicated by A. L. Pickens, of Paducah,Ky., who writes (MS) : "Another name for the loggerhead shrike inthe South is cotton-picker, probably from its bobbing waves of flightabove the cotton rows, as if darting down here and there to pluck offa fleece." The writer has never heard this name applied to the birdanywhere in its range but would think that its derivation would bemuch more apt to apply to the frequent use of cotton in nest-buildingthan the "probable" reason given above.The outstanding trait of the loggerhead is its habit of impalingvictims on thorns, barbed-wire fences, and similar sliarp projections.This accounts for the local name so universally in vogue?butcher-bird. Supposedly, it is done for the reason of storing a food supply,but probably also to assist in tearing the prey apart in many cases, asthe loggerhead does not have very strong claws. The future foodsupply idea is, no doubt, much more applicable to the northern shrike(Lanius horealis) , for the food in the loggerhead's range is so abun-dant and constantly available that there is rarely an occasion wdienthe bird has to resort to already secured prey. Conversely, there aredoubtless times when the northern bird is hard put to it in winterand uses a larder far more frequently. Regarding the loggerhead,indeed, many have questioned whether it ever does return to impaled LOGGERHEAD SHRIKE 141prey. The frequent finding of dried bodies of birds, snakes, and in-sects by many observers, ignored completely by the bird, leads to suchan impression.Pearson and the Brimleys (1942) states: "Whether this bird hangsup food for future use has not been definitely established. The au-thors of this book have not known shrikes to return to the grasshop-pers, beetles * * * that they had impaled." However, it is cer-tainly the case that this is sometimes done. H. L. Stoddard (MS.)writes me: "There used to be a question in my mind as to whethershrikes ever returned to their food caches, after such prey had driedout through hanging on a twig or wire. I settled this question tomy satisfaction one day in the yard here at home [Sherwood Planta-tion, Grady County, Ga.]. Noticing a shrike flying through the yardwith a sizable object, I grabbed up a clod and threw it at the shrike,which dropped the object. This proved to be a brittle dead twigabout 2 inches long, to which firmly adhered the dried remains of amyrtle warbler. Evidently the shrike had returned to prey hungmany days before and in trying to remove the warbler had brokenoif the twig that anchored it."So, then, it is safe to conclude that the loggerhead does not ordi-narily return to impaled prey but occasionally does so.Curiously enough, Audubon (1842) makes this remarkable state-ment : "I have never seen it attack birds, nor stick its prey on thornsin the manner of the Great American Shrike." W^iether he meansthat he did not actually see this accomplished, or whether he neverfound any evidence of it, is not clear, but it seems that the latter wasmeant. If so, it is almost beyond belief, since he spent much time inthe loggerhead's range, and it would be most natural to conclude thathe would have found something of the sort during his expeditions.He does, however, quote the Eev. John Bachman, who wrote him thathe had "never found either this or the Northern Shrike return to suchprey for food. * * * j i;^ave seen them alight on the same thornbush afterwards, but never made any use of this kind of food."Some evidence that the loggerhead occasionally indulges in a kindof play, reminiscent of certain hawks, is contained in an observationrelated to me by Herbert E. Sass, of Charleston, S. C. He happenedto be watching a pigeon sitting on the roof of his house one day, whena loggerhead suddenly appeared in the air behind and above the pigeonand, diving straight at it, struck it a resounding blow in the back!The startled pigeon was knocked completely off the roof and fell sev-eral feet before recovering its balance and spreading its wings. Noeffort was made by the shrike as a follow-up; apparently it simplyindulged a sudden impulse, as it cannot be supposed that it meant toseek the pigeon as prey. 142 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMAn observation by E. J. Eeimann (1938) reveala a rather unusualencounter between a loggerhead and a yellow chicken snake {Elapheq. quadrivittata) at Marco Island, Fla. WHiile perhaps an indicationof an attempt to secure food, it may have been an instance of thetendency to play, similar to that above, for the size of the snake wouldrather preclude the idea of the bird being able to despatch it. At anyrate, Reimann says that noting a group of men watching something on'the ground, he found the shrike attacking the snake. He says : The snake would crawl forward over the ground, and the shrike would flydown from a telegraph wire and, hovering over the snake, would pounce down,grasp the snake by the tail, rise in the air about six inches, and let the tail drop.The snake would immediately fall into a defensive coil and the shrike wouldalight on the ground about two feet away. It remained there until the snakeagain wandered off; then it would hover, pounce, and grasp the tail as before.Sitting along a telegraph wire close by, were four newly fledged young shrikes* * * a Mockingbird was also perched on the wire, but the young shrikestook no part in the combat. Due to coming dusk, the shrikes finally moved offand I threw the snake under an old building, to save it from the crowd that hadgathered there.Another instance of a shrike-snake encounter is submitted by ]\I. G.Vaiden (MS.), but it appears to be directly an attempt at securingfood. Driving along a country road on July 4, 1926, he saw a shrikeflying across ahead of him carrying, with great difficulty, a snake inits beak. At last it reached the top of a telephone pole, and there areal battle took place. The snake was very much alive and twisted,beat, and turned energetically while the shrike kept striking at it withits beak. After several minutes of watching, he states, "I broke upthis feeding, as I had more feeling for the snake than for the shrike."Throwing a clod or two at the pair was enough to drive the bird off,and the snake dropped to the ground, still alive but somewhat "bungedup." It proved to be a rough-scaled green snake ( Opheodrys aestivus)and measured I6I/2 inches long. He concludes by adding: "Unfor-tunately I did not weigh this reptile, but I know that the shrike washandling much more than its own weight. The lifting power of theshrike must be more than the average expected of small birds." Thisis a very interesting observation as it reveals the loggerhead as pro-portionately more powerful than the bald eagle {Haliaeetus leiico-cephalus). The latter is said by most authorities to be unable to liftmore than its own weight, or at the maximum, very little more. Theshrike in the foregoing account was handling "much more" than itsown weight, though Mr. Vaiden does admit that the snake was notactually weighed. None the less, it is a striking illustration of thevirility and determination embodied in this passerine species.The loggerhead maintains definite territorial limits and protectsthem assiduously. S. A. Grimes states that he has often noticedthat "each pair of shrikes has an apparently well-defined domain of LOGGERHEAD SHRIKE 143its own, which it holds defiantly to the exclusion of others of its kind."Other species often nest in fairly close proximity, however, withoutmolestation.Some observers have considered the loggerhead as a quarrelsomespecies, but, though instances of it no doubt take place, the writer hasnever been impressed with this as a characteristic. On the whole, thebird gets along very well with its avian neighbors, some of which arevery close neighbors at times. Audubon (1842) had a rather pooropinion of the loggerhead's disposition, for he says, in explanationof his drawing, that "I have given you, kind reader, the representativeof a pair of these Shrikes, contending for a mouse. The difference ofplumage in the sexes is scarcely perceptible; but I have thought itnecessary to figure both, in order to shew the quarrelsome disposi-tion of these birds even when united by the hymeneal band."Voice.?Though the loggerhead has little reputation in vocal per-formance, it has always seemed to the writer that what attainment isreached has been rather cavalierly treated in the literature. Few de-scriptions of its notes are complimentary ! While it can hardly besaid to be a singer, its efforts in spring are worthy of some notice and,in certain individuals at any rate, possess a surprisingly melodiousquality. It is true that such notes are interspersed with others any-thing but musical, but the general effect is a liquid tone that isdefinitely pleasing.Howell (1932) says: "The birds are not noisy but most of theirnotes are harsh and unmusical ; occasionally one makes an attempt atsinging, which Chapman describes as 'a series of guttural gurgles,squeaky whistles and shrill pipes.' " It is the impression of the writerthat all male shrikes "make an attempt at singing" during the nestingseason. In coastal South Carolina and the Okeechobee region ofFlorida he feels certain that the song is indulged by all mated birds.Shrikes are abundant in both areas, and the writer is intimately ac-quainted with them. While "guttural" is apt enough to describemany of the notes, and it is the case that "most of the calls are harshand unmusical," this applies more to the alarm and call notes thanthe song, if this term can be employed. Some of the latter are veryliquid, fluteiike, and appealing, so much so that many observers aresurprised to find them issuing from a loggerhead.Peterson (1939) is rather more generous in his comments, sayingthat the song of the loggerhead is "similar to that of the NorthernShrike," which he describes as "a long-continued thrasher-like suc-cession of phrases, harsher on the whole than the Thrasher's song."It is this writer's experience that the loggerhead's efforts are seldom "long-continued," but it is refreshing to hear the bird compared tothe thrasher ! One could ask little better.Peterson has an able foundation in his comparison in a statement 144 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL I^IUSEUIVImade long ago by one who knew the loggerhead well?the Rev. JohnBachman, of Charleston, S. C. It was this genial gentleman's obser-vations that considerably augmented Audubon's account of the log-gerhead in the Birds of America, the latter saying without reservationthat "my friend the Rev. John Bachman has had much better oppor-tunities of studying them." In regard to the vocal efforts he (Bach-man) wrote Audubon (1842) : "You say it has no song. This is truein part, but it has other notes than the grating sounds you attributeto it. During the breeding season, and indeed nearly all summer, themale * * * makes an effort at a song, which I cannot compareto anything nearer than the first attempts of a young Brown Thrush* * *. At times the notes are not unpleasing, but very irregular."Yet another allusion to similarity with the thrasher's song comesfrom A. L. Pickens, of Paducah, Ky., who writes (MS.) : "At times Ihave had to pause and take note to determine whether the birds' notes,softened in spring by the mating urge, and in fall and winter by dis-tance, might not be thrasher, sparrow, or bluebird.A. T. Wayne (1910) states: "Although the song of this species isconsidered by most ornithologists to be hard and unmusical, I haveheard a few individuals which sang very sweetly."Economic status.?Aside from its undoubted value to agriculture inits considerable destruction of injurious small mammals and insects,a fact well recognized by informed people, the loggerhead assumesadded importance to stockmen by reason of a comparatively recent dis-covery. At the 1929 meeting of the American Ornithologists' Unionin Philadelphia, a paper was read by Dr. Eloise B. Cram (1930) deal-ing with birds as factors in the control of a stomach worm in swine.While the details of it cannot be quoted here it is of great interest tonote the conclusions reached. The investigation resulted "from thediscovery made by H. L. Stoddard several years ago that the Logger-head Shrike {Lanius I. ludovicianus) in northern Florida, chiefly inLeon County, and in southern Georgia, chiefly in Grady County, wereinfested with large numbers of roundworms encysted in the wall of thedigestive tract. These parasites were identified by the writer asspirurid larvae and the infestation as a case of aberrant parasitism* * * the larvae being in a host other than the correct final hostand therefore incapable of further development." Careful study wasundertaken of birds so infested, and it was found that the dung-beetle{Phanaeus camifex) remains in shrikes' stomachs were "practicallyone hundred percent heavily parasitized with the same larval round-worm as was found in the shrikes." Extensive feeding experimentswere carried out in order to find the final host of the parasite, larvaetaken from shrikes being fed to a series of experimental animals.Coming to the summary of tlie entire undertaking the writer quotesMiss Cram again : LOGGERHEAD SHRIKE 145Larval roundworms found * * * encysted in the walls of the digestivetract of Loggerhead Shrikes * * * were identified * * * as Physo-cephalus scxalatus, the adult form of which occurs in tlie stomach of swine. Thedung beetles * * * were found to serve as the first and normal intermediatehosts of the parasite in this locality [northern Fla. and southern Ga., in countiesabove named]. Reencystment of the larvae was found to occur in a widevariety of animals * * *. It is ix>inted out that beetle-consuming animals, ofwhich birds are the most important, are therefore a significant factor in limitingthe degree of infestation of swine with Physocephalus scxalatus in such an area.This is a most interesting account and revelation and should be ofvalue to those encaged in hog-raising probably in otlier parts of theSoutheast. The loggerhead is an abundant bird in the cattle-ranchareas of Florida, notably the Lake Okeechobee and Kissimmee Prairieregions, and it may be that its value in that area is equal to good donein the more northern parts of the State. At any rate it is commendedto all who are interested in the welfare of the loggerhead and its eco-nomic importance to humanity, directly and indirectly.Field 7narks.?The loggerhead is hardly to be confused with anyother species except the mockingbird. To the latter, however, it bearssuch a resemblance that many inexperienced observers confuse thetwo birds, though the similarity is largely superficial. Casual ac-quaintance on the part of the general public has resulted in the oftenheard local name of "French mockingbird," but even this term infersthat there is a variation between the two for, as some put it, the prefix "French" implies a more striking appearance and the result is a fancymockingbird ! A. L. Pickens states (MS.) : "The Cherokee Indians appear to haveconfused the mockingbird with the loggerhead under a common namemeaning "heads-it-eats" or "head-eaters," which has given rise to thelegend among them tliat the mockingbird attains its wonderful powersof mimicry by eating the heads (singing parts) of other birds."The shrike, however, is a much chunkier bird than the mocker, andthe gray is markedly lighter in shade, much resembling that of thegray kingbird {Tyrannus dominicensis) . The large head, which isthe reason for the name loggerhead, is ahvays very noticeable even insilhouette ; while the black line through the eye, amounting almost toa mask, is easy to see and contrasts sharply with this lack in themockingbird.The entire plumage pattern is very contrasting, the blacks, grays,and whites being distinctly defined and not blending. The tail whileat rest appears very slim, and the heavy forepart of the bird suggestsa somewhat top-heavy appearance. Unlike the larger northern shrikethere is no barring on the breast.These characters, together with the habit of the bird in selecting suchconspicuous perches and its rapid vibratory flight, combine to renderit plainly distinctive after a little experience in the field. 146 BULLETIN 197, IJlSriTED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMDISTRIBUTIONRange.?Southern Canada to southern Mexico.Breeding range.?Shrikes of the loggerhead group breed north tocentral northern Washington (Twisp and Kiverdale) ; recordedin extreme southern British Columbia (Chilliwack, Osoyoos, Mid-way, and Edgewood) but no positive evidence of breeding; south-,central Alberta (Edmonton and Camrose) ; southern Saskatchewan(Carlton, Quill Lake, and Yorkton) ; southern Manitoba (Lake St.Martin and Winnipeg) ; southern Ontario (Emo, Midland, Rutlier-gien, and Ottawa) ; southern Quebec (Montreal and Kamouraska) ;and southern New Brunswick (Scotch Lake and St. Jolin). East toNew Brunswick (St. John) ; southern Maine (Bangor, Waterville,and Saco) ; northwestern Massachusetts (Williamstown) ; westernConnecticut (Winchester) ; New Jersey (Elizabeth and Cape May),and the other Atlantic Coast States to southern Florida (Homestead) . South to southern Florida (Homestead and Fort Myers) the Gulfcoast to southern Texas (Galveston, Victoria, San Antonio, and Mara-thon) ; southern Coahuila (Diamante Pass) ; southwestern Tamauli-pas (Gomez Farias) ; western Veracruz (Las Vigas) ; to Oaxaca(Tehuantepec). West to Oaxaca (Tehuantepec) ; Guerrero (Chil-pancingo) ; Lower California (Cape San Lucas, San Ignacio Lagoon,and San Quintm) ; California (San Diego, the Santa Barbara Islands,Fresno, San Francisco, and Oroville) ; Oregon, east of the Cascades(Tule Lake and Ashland) ; central Washington (Yakima andChelan) ; and southwestern British Columbia, possibly (Chilliwack). 'Winter range.?In winter the races of the loggerhead shrike with-draw somewhat from the northern part of their breeding range. Atthat season they are found north to northwestern Washington (Blaineand Dungenoss) ; southern Oregon (Klamath and Tule Lakes) ; west-ern and southern Nevada (Carson and the Charleston Mountains) ; southwestern Utah (St. George) ; central Arizona (Flagstaff, FortVerde, and the Salt River Wildlife Refuge) ; southern to centralNew Mexico (Silver City, Elephant Butte, and Albuquerque) ; north-western Texas (Palo Duro Canyon) ; northern Kansas (Stockton,Manhattan, and Lawrence) ; occasionally to Nebraska (Scotts Bluffand Stapleton) ; central Missouri (Concordia, Columbia, and St.Charles) ; southern Illinois (JMount Carmel) ; southern Kentucky(Russellville) ; Tennessee (Nashville and Johnson City) ; centralVirginia (Sweet Briar) ; District of Columbia (Washington) ; andcentral New Jersey (Princeton) ; rare or accidental north to Wau-watosa. Wis.; Toledo, Ohio; Toronto, Ontario; Rochester, N. Y.and Concord, N. H.The range as outlined is divided into several subspecies or geo-graphic races. The typical race, the loggerhead shrike (Z. I. ludovi- LOGGERHEAD SHRIKE 147 cianus), breeds in the Southeastern States from central Louisianathrough southern ALabama and Georgia to southern North Carolinaand southward ; the migrant shrike {L.l. migraiis) breeds from south-eastern Manitoba to northeastern Texas and eastward north of therange of the typical race; the white-rumped shrike {L. I. excubltor-ides) breeds from central Alberta and southwestern Manitoba southto eastern California, northern Arizona, and central Texas; the Son-ora shrike (Z. I. sonorie7\sis) breeds from the Colorado Desert ofCalifornia and northwestern Lower California east through southernArizona and New Mexico, south to northern Sinaloa, Durango, andChihuahua ; the California shrike {L. I. gambeli) breeds from southernBritish Columbia (probably), southwestern Montana, and westernWyoming to the Cascades in Washington and Oregon and south tocentral California, west of the Sierras, and thence along the Pacificcoast to about San Diego ; the island shrike {L. I. anthonyl) is resi-dent on the islands of Santa Cruz, Anacapa, Santa Rosa, and SantaCatalina, Calif.; Mearns's shrike {L. I. mearnsi) is resident on theisland of San Clemente Island, Calif.; Grinnell's shrike (Z. I. gnn-neJli) is resident in nortliern Lower California south to about lati-tude 29? ; Nelson's shrike (Z. I. nelsonl) is resident in southern LowerCalifornia.Migration.?Only the migrant and white-rumped shrikes are trulymigratory, but in the following dates no attempt has been made todivide the races.Early dates of spring arrival are: Pennsylvania?McKeesport,March 24. New York?Rochester, March 15. Maine?Phillips,March 22, New Brunswick?Chatham, April 6. Quebec?Montreal,March 27. Ohio?Oberlin, March 2. Ontario?London, March 22.Indiana?Notre Dame, March 4. Michigan?Ann Arbor, March 23.Illinois?Rantoul, Februarj'- 28. Wisconsin?Milwaukee, March 10.Missouri?Columbia, March 11. Iowa?Keokuk, March 2. Minne-sota?Stillwater, March 18. Kansas?Topeka, March 6. Ne-braska?Chadron, February 15. South Dakota?Yankton, March 24.North Dakota?Charlson, March 25. Manitoba?Aweme, March 28.Saskatchewan?Eastend, March 28. Colorado?Colorado Springs,IMarch 2. Wyoming?Douglas, March 5.Late dates of fall departure are : Wyoming?Laramie, October 15.Colorado?Denver, November 2. Saskatchewan, Indian Head, No-vember 2. Manitoba?Aweme, October 28. North Dakota?James-town, December 18. South Dakota?Sioux Falls, November 14. Ne-braska?Lincoln, November 19. Kansas?Wichita, November 27.Minnesota?St. Paul, October 26. Iowa?Marshalltown, November14. Missouri?Concordia, November 15. Wisconsin?Unity, No-vember 4. Illin.ois?Chicago, November 13. Michigan?McMillan,October 26. Indiana?Bloomington, November 30. Ontario?Ot- 148 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL ]MUSEUM ytawa, October 18. Ohio?Salem, November 20. New York?Orient,December 9. Pennsylvania?State College, November 17. NewBrunswick?Scotch Lake, October 14. Maine?^Lewiston, Novem-ber 24.The majority of the returns of banded shrikes have been at or nearthe place of banding. A few recovered at distant points may bequoted. One banded at Carmangay, Alberta, on June 25, 1933, waskilled December 22, 1933, at The Grove, Tex., and another bandedat the same place on July 16, 1933, was killed on October 6, 1934, atGranger, Tex. One banded at Amenia, N. Dak., on April 7, 1932,was killed on September 8, 1932, at Chriesman, Tex. A bird bandedon June 9, 1929, at Whittemore, Mich., was found on September 5,1929, at Ramer, Ala. A bird banded as an adult was killed at thesame station five years later, being then at least six years old.Casual records.?The loggerhead shrike is reported as of accidentaloccurrence on Andros Island, Bahamas. A specimen collected atChurchill, Manitoba, on July 1, 1938, has been determined to be awhite-rumped shrike ; a pair of undetermined race bred near Church-ill in 1940.Egg dates.?Arizona : 53 records, March 10 to June 17 ; 28 records,April 1 to 26, indicating the height of this season.California : 126 records, February 24 to July 1 ; 70 records, March15 to April 15.Florida : 44 records, February 19 to July 6 ; 22 records, March 20to April 11.Illinois : 90 records, April 4 to July 5 ; 57 records, April 15 to 30.New York: 29 records, April 25 to June 28; 18 records, April 25to 29.Ontario : 17 records, April 5 to June 2 ; 9 records, May 6 to 9.Texas : 11 records, March 23 to June 4; 5 records. May 4 to 26.LANIUS LUDOVICIAKUS MIGRANS PalmerMIGRANT SHRIKEHABITSConsiderable confusion existed in the minds of the earlier writerson American ornithology as to the subspecific status of the smallshrikes of the loggerhead group that breed east of the MississippiValley and north of the Gulf States and the Carolinas. The breedingbirds of this northeastern section have been referred by various au-thors, from the time of Audubon on, to either the southern loggerhead,the western white-rumped, or even rarely to the large northern shrike,L. horealis. I remember very distinctly submitting a shrike that Ishot near Cape Vincent in northern New York, during my youth, tothat careful and eminent ornithologist William Brewster; I was in MIGRANT SHRIKE 149doubt about it and asked him to identify it; he called it, with somehesitation, a white-rumped shrike, L. I. excuhitorides, but admittedthat it was not quite typical. This was, of course, some time before7nigrans was recognized.Even as late as 1895 the second edition of the A. O. U. Check-listgave the breeding range of the loggerhead shrike, L. I. ludovicianus, asextending northeastward to New England, but restricted excubi-torides to breeding west of the eastern border of the Great Plains.The confusion and misunderstandings were finally cleared up byWilliam Palmer (1898), who described and named the migrantshrike, L. I. migrans, as a distinct subspecies. His historical synopsisgives an interesting account of all the misunderstandings that hadprevailed since the daj'^s of Wilson and Audubon, to which the readeris referred, as it is too long to be included here. He gives the distin-guishing characters of the adult males of the two eastern races as fol-lows : Loggerhead shrike : "Above dark slaty ; beneath almost immac-ulate white; bill large and stout, swollen toward tip; hook large andcoarse, gently curved downwards; tail longer than wing." Migrantshrike: "Above bluish gray; beneath pale slaty; throat white; billsmaller, regularly tapering; hook delicate and sharply bent down-wards; tail shorter than wing." This wing-to-tail ratio follows theusual rule, that birds having long migration routes have relativelylonger wings than those that do not migrate.He gives the range of the loggerhead shrike as "from middle Louisi-ana eastward along the Gulf Coast and its indentations ; throughoutFlorida, and eastward into North Carolina. Extending from thisrange to an indeterminate distance up the valleys, though generallyconfined below the 100-foot contour line. Non-migratory except atits more northern and its higher habitat." And that of the migrantshrike as "from Maine, Vermont, and Canada to Minnesota; south-wards into North Carolina and the Ohio Valley to the Plains. Absentin winter from its more northern and higher habitats and migratingin the autumn toward the Atlantic Coast and into the Carolinas, Ten-nessee, and lower Mississippi valley. Breeding almost entirely abovethe 600-foot contour in the valleys, casually up to about 2000 feet, andto within about 50 miles of the coast in Maine. From Canada andthe edges of the plains intergrading into excubitoridesy"From the distribution here given," says Palmer, "it will be noticedthat there is a considerable hiatus between the breeding ranges of thesetwo forms. This is evidently caused by the fact that the interval be-tween the 100-foot and the 500-foot contours is a part of the greatcoastal plain forest region of the south, a region unsuited to shrikes,and in which they do not breed."All shrikes love open country, thinly wooded regions, scrubbycountry, clearings, meadows, pastures, and thickets along roads and 150 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMhedges, especially osage-orange hedges. Ora W. Knight (1908) saysthat, in Maine, "it is largely a bird of civilization, frequenting thehedgerows, wayside trees, telegraph wires and peaks of houses, andI have never seen them at any distance from cultivated lands." Al-though the loggerhead shrike is common in tlie flat pinewoods ofFlorida, its northern relatives seems to largely avoid pinewoods anddense deciduous woods, though it sometimes breeds in the more open'stands of fir trees in the northern part of its range.Prof. Maurice Brooks sends me the following interesting commenton the distribution of the migrant shrike in West Virginia : "For somereason migrant shrikes are rare in West Virginia west of the Alleghenycrests, becoming common or locally abundant in the river valleys ofthe eastern portion of the State. Whether or not there is any corre-lation, it is interesting to plot the distribution of this bird and the rain-fall within the areas of its presumed range. Common in the MiddleWest where rainfall averages around 30 inches or below, it becomesscarce or absent in the Allegheny foothills of Ohio and western WestVirginia, where the precipitation shows a sharp increase to 35 or 40inches. In the West Virginia regions where rainfall is heavier, 50 or60 inches, it is, so far as we know, completely abse^it as a breedingbird ; but to the east, where the Allegheny Mountains throw the valleysinto a rain shadow, the bird reappears in good numbers. This may beaccidental, but the gap in distribution cannot be accounted for by anyknown factors of food, temperature, or place to impale victims."Territory.?Mr. Knight (1908) says: "A pair of birds occupies thesame locality year after year, that is to say I have found nests in thesame trees or group of trees, and many times on the very same limbfrom which a nest or nests had been taken in years previously. Theeggs also were of the same type so that it was evidently the same birds.* * * In one case the male bird was killed and the survivor soonfound a mate and had another nest in the same locality within a month.The next season the female was killed, the male shortly found a newmate in the same way and another nest was built, and the eggs laidtherein were of a different type. * * * I have knowledge of onepair being in the same locality for ten years, and of several other pairfor only a year or so less than this." He does not refer to any attemptat defense of the territory, as observed by Dr. Miller (1931) in the resi-dent California shrike.Migration.?The migrant shrike is well named, as it is more migra-tory than its southern relative, with which it has been compared. Itsmigration range is not extensive, for it has been known to spend thewinter occasionally as far north as southern New England, where,however, its migrations have been fairly well marked. Evidenceseems to indicate that this slirike originally entered New England from MIGRANT SHRIKE 151the west and that the northward migi'ation in spring is mainly west ofthe Alleghenies and then eastward into New Enghmd. I have neverseen it in southeastern Massachusetts in spring and only rarelj^- infall ; but Wendell Taber tells me that he has seen it in eastern Massa-chusetts on at least four occasions during March, once quite near myhome and tAvice even on Cape Cod. In fall, however, it apparentlymoves southward, or southeastward, toward the coast and then fol-lows a coastwise route, east of the Alleghenies, to its winter haunts.From the more western portions of its summer range the fall migra-tion seems to move in a more southern, or southwestern, direction towinter haunts as far vrest as Louisiana and Texas.Nesting.?The nesting habits of the migrant shrike do not differmatei'ially from those of the species elsewhere, except that in somelocalities it seems to select more often some isolated tree along a high-way and often at a considerable height in an exi'tosed situation. Innorthern New England and in eastern Canada, nests have been foundin conifers, firs, spruces, and pines.Henry Mousley (1918) mentions a nest found near Hatley, Quebec,in a solitary, tall fir tree by the side of a road and not far from hishouse. The lower branches of the tree had been cut off, and the nestwas placed 34 feet from the ground in a dense portion of the tree, sotliat it could not be seen from the ground. "The foundation of thenest consisted of fir twigs, rootlets, string and that favorite materialof most birds here, the stalks and flower heads of the pearly ever-lasting. The lining was formed of wool, plant down, and a goodsupply of feathers, and the dimensions were as follows, viz. : outsidediameter 6, inside 2% inches; outside depth 41^5 inside 214 inches."He located the second nest of this pair 8 feet up in an apple tree, only85 yards distant, and suggests that the shrikes may have selected thefir tree because there was no foliage for concealment on the deciduoustrees and thickets when the first nest was built. However that may be,there are a number of other records of nests in conifers, up to 20 feetin spruces and firs and down to as low as 4 or 5 feet in stunted spruces.Owen Durfee mentions in his field notes a nest 13 feet from the ground,in plain sight, in an elm tree and another in a pine, both by a roadsidenear Lancaster, N. H. ; and Frederic H. Kennard records in his notesfor the same locality a nest 18 feet up in a spruce tree growing by theroad in front of a farmhouse.It must not be inferred from the above records that the migrantshrike does not nest in other situations in this general region, for ithas often been found nesting here in apple trees in orchards, in otherlow trees, and in such thorny bushes and thickets as it uses elsewhere.A. Dawes Du Dois has sent me his data for seven nests in Illinois.Four of these were in osage-orange hedoes or bushes : one was in an 152 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMapple tree in an orchard, 15 feet from the ground ; one was 12 feet upin a small tree by the side of a little-used lane, with no attempt atconcealment ; and the lowest nest was only 5 feet from the ground ina wild crab-apple tree in a pasture.Dr. Miller (1931) lists, in addition to those mentioned above, asamong the many types of trees and bushes used as nesting sites by themigrant shrike, oaks, hawthorn bushes, cottonwoods, willows, and wildplum trees, at heights ranging from 4 to 18 feet. Margaret M. Nice(1931) records two nests near Norman, Okla., that were 30 and 40feet above the ground, respectively ; both were in elm trees ; the latterseems to be the record height for this subspecies. Dr. Thomas S.Roberts (1932) states that a pair of these shrikes built a nest in an oldgrackle's nest and that another pair used an old catbird's nest, inMinnesota.Eggs.?The migrant shrike lays four to six eggs, rarely seven. Theeggs are practically indistinguishable from those of the species else-where, which have been well described by Dr. Miller under the Cali-fornia shrike. The measurements of 40 eggs average 24.7 by 18.6millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 26.4 by 19.5,26.3 by 19.9, 23.0 by 18.6, and 24.0 by 17.6 millimeters.Young.?The full account given by Dr. Miller under the Californiashrike is so satisfactory that it does not seem necessary to say anythinghere about the incubation of the eggs and the care and development ofthe young, though some authors have credited the migrant shrike witha shorter period of incubation and a longer altricial period for theyoung. Probably Dr. Miller's ligures are correct, and doubtless thetwo races do not differ much in these respects. Apparently two broodsare often raised in a season in the north, and probably usually in thesouth. The male has often been seen feeding the young of the firstbrood while the female is laying eggs for the second brood.Plumages.?A very full account of all the plumages of all theNorth American shrikes has been published by Dr. Alden H. Miller(1931), to which the reader is referred, as the descriptions are givenin too much detail to be quoted here. Dr. Dwight (1900) describesthe Juvenal plumage of migrans as follows : "Above, drab-gray, faintlyvermiculated and with pale buff edgings ; rump slightly paler. Wingsand tail black, a white area at the bases of the primaries, the covertsand tertiaries buff tipped, palest on the tertiaries ; the outer rectriceslargely white, the central ones buff, with terminal mottling. Lores,orbital region and auricidars dull black. Below, dull white on chin,abdomen and crissum, washed on breast and sides with very palebuff or drab, vermiculated with dusky subterminal bands on eachfeather. Bill and feet dusky becoming black."The first winter plumage is acquired by a partial postjuvenal molt, MIGRANT SHRIKE 153 "in September and October, which involves the body plumage, ter-tiaries, wing coverts and tail, but not the rest of the wings. Similarto previous plumage but grayer above and the venniculations absentor very indistinct on the breast. Above, plumbeous gray, paler onrump, the posterior scapulars white."Wings and tail black except for the brown juvenal primaries, sec-ondaries and primary coverts, the lesser coverts plumbeous, white tipsto the new tertiaries and white terminal spots on the lateral rectrices.Below, dull white with dusky venniculations sometimes faintly indi-cated. A broad, black bar through the eye."He says that in both young and old birds there is a partial prenuptialmolt in February and March, "which involves chieily the chin, throatand head, and a fevv' scattering feathers elsewhere, but neither thewings nor the tail." All individuals have a complete postnuptial molt,mainly in September, but sometimes beginning in July or August,and sometimes prolonged into October or even November.Food.?The migrant shrike eats fewer mice and birds and moreinsects tlian the northern shrike does. The northern bird is witli usin the States only in winter, when insects are scarce; but the mi-grant finds insects abundant in its summer home and fairly commonin the south in winter. Shrikes are almost omnivorous and Avill takewhat animal food is most readily available. The following report byF. H. King (1883) on the contents of stomachs collected in Wisconsinis interesting as showing the variety of food eaten and the proportionsof each: "Of fifteen specimens examined or observed, one had eatenseven moths ; three, five caterpillars ; two, eleven diptera, among themfive crane-flies; nine, eighteen beetles, among them three ground-beetles, three carrion-beetles and two leaf-chafers; five, twenty-twograsshoppers ; two, two crickets ; three, six May-flies ; two, four snails.Two had killed three birds?one, a Canarybird, and one, two Warb-lers; two, two mice. One of the birds was shot while in the act ofkilling a meadow mouse [Arvicola riparia) ."William Brewster (1938) saw a migrant shrike impale a bankswallow, a bluebird, and a pickerel frog. Others have reported smallsparrows as killed by this shrike, as well as shrews, snakes, lizards, andtree frogs. But all the vetebrates eaten form but a small proportionof the food. Invertebrates, mainly insects, form the bulk of the food,of which Orthoptera make up the largest item ; but beetles, both bene-ficial and harmful, cutworms, butterflies, cicadas, wasps, and spidersare also included in the food.Frank T, Noble (1902) published an interesting account of a mi-grant shrike that met its match in an attempt to capture a smallgartersnake, about 18 inches long. The snake had wound itselfaround the bird's neck and had nearly strangled it. Mr. Noble was843290?50 11 154 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMunable to uncoil the snake until lie severed it with a pair of scissorsand released the badly frightened bird.Behavior.?The behavior of this si^ecies in foraging and impalingits prey has been so fully described by Dr. Miller under the Californiashrike, that it need not be repeated here.. Mr. Brewster (1938)watched some of these shrikes in their normal behavior and says oftheir flight : "On leaving their perches, whether the latter were fenceposts or telegraph poles, they invariably shot down at a steep angle,as if aiming at some object on the ground and then skimmed offswiftly across the field only a foot or two above the turf, rising andfalling in long, graceful but gentle (or shallow) undulations, movingtheir wings very rapidly at the beginning of each upward curve andthen closing them for an instant just as a Woodpecker or Goldfinchdoes when pursuing its similar 'galloping' flight. During the ex-ceedingly rapid beat of the wings their light markings were alter-nately displayed and concealed, giving a flickering effect as of a smallbit of looking-glass flashed in the sunlight."This shrike also has a conspicuous hovering flight, hanging suspendedin the air on rapidly vibrating wings, like the hovering flight of thesparrow hawk while scanning the ground below in search of prey, itswings serving only to hold it stationary in one spot. While perched,it frequently raises and drops its tail, spreading it during the motionand then closing it and letting it hang.Voice.?So much has been written about the song and other notesof this species under the other subspecies that there are only twoitems worth mentioning here.Harold M. Holland writes to me from Galesburg, 111. : "On a bright,early May morning several years ago, having stopped my car oppositea migrant shrike's nest in a hedgerow bordering a country road, Ibecame aware of an unfamiliar bird song close by and was surprisedto find that this emanated from the shrike occupying the nest. Withhead slightly raised, it sang for two or three minutes, a low-pitched,pleasing little jumble of notes that lacked the least trace of harshness,as if singing softly to itself, in perfect contentment. Both the un-usual 'song' and singing from the nest remain lone occurrences in along acquaintance with this species."Saunders and Dale (1933) heard a migrant shrike singing on thewing in Middlesex County, Ontario, on May 24, 1928 : "On enteringthe field we heard a clear whistle that reminded us of a Sandpiper'snote. On tracing this to its source we found the Shrike sitting on afallen dead apple tree. It flew as we approached and alighted on athorn bush. The next note resembled that of a Nighthawk. It flewagain and as it was on the wing it uttered a rolling call similar tothat given by the Bartramian Sandpiper, a bird which, by the way,lives in the same field as the Shrike." WHITE-RUMPED SHRIKE 155LANIUS LUDOVICIANUS EXCUBITORIDES SwainsonWHITE-RUMPED SHRIKEHABITSThis is the paler race of tlie species that is found in the westernplains of Canada and the United States, from the eastern border ofthe Great Plains to the western edge of the Great Basin, and fromthe plains of the Saskatchewan in Canada to the southwestern desertregions and northern Mexico.Ridgway (1904) describes it as "similar to L. I. migr'ans^ but gray ofupper parts decidedly paler (between slate-gray and no. 6 gray),changing abruptly to white on upper tail-coverts ; white of scapularsmore extended (occupying practically the whole of scapular region)and more abruptly contrasted with gray of back; forehead and supra-loral region paler gray than crown, sometimes whitish; under partspurer white ; size averaging slightly larger."Dr. Miller (1931) saj^s of its haunts in general : This race is found chiefly in arid, short grass or desert savanna, plains areas.In these regions the original terrane is rarely modified by small farms. In thenorth the range of this race includes some areas of more luxuriant grassland.The birds forage out over the plains but usually they are to be found near thetimber, principally cottonwoods, along water courses. * * * in Texas therace is found irregularly in regions where scattered oaks and mesquites occur.Throughout its summer habitat excubitorides encounters comparatively arid con-ditions with the exception of some northern parts of its range in Canada.Life-zones occupied are Upper and Lower Sonoran, locally Transition in thenorth.Between Quill Lake and Prince Albert, in northern Saskatchewan, Isaw a few white-rumped shrikes near the northern limit of theirsummer range; the country here w\as rolling, largely open grassland,but with scattered ponds, bogs, and muskegs in the hollows, and withmany groves of poplars or aspens on the highlands ; it was only thinlysettled with villages and small farms.I have no record of having seen it in southwestern Saskatchewan,though it doubtless occurs there.Nesting.?In southern Arizona we found the white-rumped shrike tobe a very common bird and saw a number of their nests, as we drovealong the roads ; most of the nests were easily seen in the thorny bushesby the roadside, usually not much more than 4 or 5 feet from theground. Along the road leading to the Chiricahua INIountains wesaw several nests in the soapweed yuccas ; one of these was a very prettynest, made of whitish weed stems with white cottony blossoms, givingthe nest a soft fluffy appearance; the six eggs in it were so heavilyincubated on April 26, 1922, that we did not collect it. But the nextday, near the Dragoon Mountains, we took a set of six perfectly fresh 156 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM eggs; the nest was 8 feet from the ground in a small blackjack oak inopen country ; it was built on top of an old mockingbird's nest and wasmade mainly of weed stalks with the leaf and blossom buds on them,mixed with grasses, straws, and fine twigs; it was lined with finermaterial of the same kind and with a few feathers. Another set wastaken on May 1 from a nest near Hereford that was 4 feet from theground in a small hackberry by the roadside. An exceptionally highnest was found on May 27 near Fairbank, in the San Pedro Valley ; this was 15 feet above the ground, near the end of a branch of a largewillow.A set of seven eggs in my collection, taken by Fred M. Dille, in WeedCounty, Colo., came from a nest "in the lower, tangled branches of ascrub willow, 7 feet from the ground."Dr. Miller's (1930) two proposed races, sonoriensis and nevadensis,both of which we have always included within the range of excubito-rides^ seem to have somewhat different preferences as to nesting sites,owing, of course, to the difference in environment. Of the former, thesouthwestern desert race, he (1931) says: "Mesquite, screw bean, paloverde, smoke-bush, and other desert trees and bushes of similar sizeafford nesting sites for this race. At Palm Springs, California, I havefound several nests fairly well concealed in clumps of mistletoe inmesquite trees ranging in height from seven to fifteen feet aboveground. Where broadleaf trees occur these shrikes may make use ofsuch shelter for nesting." Of the more northern race, he says : "Nestingsites oinevadensis include willows, cottonwoods, atriplex, Joshua trees,mesquites, Purshia^ Lepargyrea argentea^ and Artemisia tridentata.Nests may be placed as low as two feet in sagebushes. A nest taken atLancaster, Los Angeles County, California, was located about five feetfrom the ground on a hanging limb of a Joshua tree." For the morenorthern and eastern race, to which he restricts the name excuhitorides,he says that "principal among the nest sites of this form are the cotton-wood and willow trees along the water courses in the Great Plainsregion." E. S. Cameron (1908) mentions a Montana nest "in the forkof a box elder" and another "in a cedar."Dawson and Bowles (1909) say of the nesting of this shrike ineastern Washington : "The nest is a bulky but usually well-built affair,placed habitually in a sagebush, or a greasewood clump, with wildclematis for third choice. The structure is designed for warmth andcomfort, so that, whenever possible, to the thickened walls of plantfibers, cowhair, or sheep's w^ool, is added an inner lining of feathers, andthese not infrequently curl over the edge so as completely to concealthe nest contents."Dr. Jean M. Linsdale (1938) records four Nevada nests in buffalo-berry bushes, 21/2 to 4 feet above ground, one 3 feet up in a sagebush CALIFORNIA SHRIKE 157and one in a wormwood only 18 inches from the ground, the lowestI have seen recorded.Eggs.?The white-rumped shrike lays four to seven eggs; six seemsto be the commonest number, four uncommon and seven rare. Theyare practically indistinguishable from the eggs of the species elsewhere,which are so well described under the California shrike. The measure-ments of 40 eggs average 24.8 by 18.4 millimeters ; the eggs showingthe four extremes measure 27.4 by 18.3, 26.2 by 19.6, 21.8 by 18.3, and24.9 by 17.3 millimeters.Food.?In a general way the food of the white-rumped shrike issimilar to that of the other races of the species, due allowance beingmade for what its environment provides. In the southwestern deserts,where reptiles are plentiful, it seems to eat many kinds of lizards andsmall snakes.William Lloyd (1887) gives a good idea of its food in western Texas : "It lives on grasshoppers when it can procure them, and in winter,when the weather is severe, takes to carrion. I found one in January,1884, so gorged from feeding on a dead sheep that it could not fly. Inthe Davis Mountains it lives in winter on large coleoptera. In springit occasionally kills birds. I have seen SpheUa socialls arkon(E,Vireo belli, PoUoptila ccerulea, and others, amongst its victims, andin summer it has a fancy for nestlings."G. F. Knowlton and F. C. Harmston (1944) give a detailed list ofthe stomach contents of 65 white-rumped shrikes collected in Utah,to which the reader is referred.Other habits are similar to those of the species elsewhere. It is amigratory subspecies, withdrawing from the more northern portionsof its range in the fall and spending the winter in the SouthwesternUnited States and Mexico.LANIUS LUDOVICIANUS GAMBELI RidgwayCALIFORNIA SHRIKEHABITS ^Contributed by Axden Holmes MilleeOver a large part of North America south of the great transconti-nental forests, loggerhead shrikes may be found in open country andbroken woodland. But it is chiefly well to the southward, as in Cali-fornia and in Florida, that the species is numerous enough to becomea conspicuous element in the bird life. The California loggerheadshrike, Lmiius ludovicianus gambeli, westernmost race of the species, 1 Derived largely from Miller, "Systematic Revision and Natural History of the AmericanShrikes (Lanius)," 1931. 158 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUISIis especially common in the Great Valley of California and in coastalsouthern California. To the northward in eastern Oregon and Wash-ington and the northern part of the Great Basin it occurs rathersparsely in juniper and sagebrush land. Aggressive, vigorous, anddecisive in its actions, and contributing strident bursts of sound andalso varied melodic trills to the auditory ensemble, it is likely to be oneof a person's first bird acquaintances in those regions where it flour-ishes. Shrikes are drawn to roadsides by desirable perches on fencesand power lines, and in such places their conspicuous foraging actionsand their interesting butchering habits are easily watched, as is alsotheir nesting activity, which centers in isolated clumps of trees or tallbushes. Through the spring and early summer the wheedling criesof large families of hungry young shrikes are an ever-present sound,typical of the parched plains and gently sloping hills of a lowlandCalifornia countryside.Loggerhead shrikes hunt by watching from fixed positions, and longunobstructed views are required. Food typically is taken on theground and is seen from above. These instinctive methods demand thatthe bird live in the open but where there are good lookout posts.Dense brush and continuous woodland or forest would not permitnormal operations. Further than this, these shrikes seem to do bestwhere there is little or but moderate rain and fog, especially in thesummer season. Agricultural developments within the range of theCalifornia shrike have probably favored this bird by providing treesin open plains areas without diminishing significantly the exposedground surface where they hunt.North of California, shrikes are largely migratory, but south oflatitude 40? their populations are resident. Migration is never aconspicuous affair in this bird, although on the Colorado Desert Cali-fornia shrikes winter regularly with Sonora loggerhead shrikes,Lanius ludovicianus sononensis, which are permanently resident there.Where I have most closely watched California shrikes in Contra CostaCounty, Calif., and in the Lower San Joaquin Valley, no movementsof more than local type have been detected.Territory.?Unlike many passerine birds, shrikes display territorialbehavior throughout the year. Late in summer and in fall, residentCalifornia shrikes are completely solitary, and males and females de-fend feeding territories. The annual territorial cycle then may besaid to begin at the close of the breeding season early in July whenfamily groups are disintegrating. Typical was the action of an adultmale observed on July 3, 1929, at Firebaugh, Fresno County. Twoyoung were pursued seemingly in an endeavor to chase them from thevicinity. The adult sang at frequent intervals and attempted to at-tack three young captive shrikes that I had in camp. No other adultshrike was permitted to come about the singing posts of this male. CALIFORNIA SHRIKE 159Several other adult shrikes were stationed in adjacent territories atdistances of 200 to 400 yards. That one of these birds was the femaleparent of the young is highly probable. Elsewhere solitary femaleswere collected which were acting in the same manner as this male.Early in August apparently the same male shrike was observed atFirebaugh. No j^oung were in evidence, and other shrikes repeatedlywere chased from the territory with much vigor. The bird was sing-ing as frequently as in July but was in the height of the annual molt.When shot, it proved to have gonads decidedly smaller than is normalfor the breeding season. At this same time several hundred solitaryshrikes were noted in the San Joaquin Valley ; not one pair was seen.By November some few California shrikes have become paired.Members of a pair were seen 30 yards from one another near Fire-baugh, and members of another were watched as they amicably oc-cupied perches on fence rails on either side of a small country road.A census on three days late in November revealed only three and adoubtful fourth pair out of 93 individuals watched long enough todetermine their status.Pair formation seems to involve trial cliases and begging notes, whichdoubtless aid in revealing the sex of a bird, or better, in inducing ap-propriate differentiated response in birds of opposite sex. An ap-parent example of incipient sexual interest was noted on November 30.A shrike that had been watched for a short time was soon chased vio-lently high into the air by the owner of the area. The chase wasaccompanied by the sharp note, hzech^ several times repeated, indica-tive of excitement and usually associated with combat. The intruderwas followed to the edge of the territory, whereupon the defenderstopped and engaged in a sexual display commonly seen in the breed-ing season. This consisted of fluttering the wings and of begging notessimilar to the actions of females during the laying and incubatingperiods. The bird that had been chased from the territory showedno response, and the bird giving the display ceased and returned to oneof its lookout posts. Unfortunately, both individuals were not ob-tained; the bird that had been driven away proved to be an adultmale.The two birds obviously were not paired at the time. There wassome form of sexual excitement in one of them, presumably a female.The chasing perhaps was a sexual flight but, judged from nuptial activ-ities observed in the spring season, the flight represented a defense ofterritory. It appears to me that sexual excitation was awakening inthe defending bird but was not yet sufficient to overcome the impulseto remain in solitary possession of the feeding territory. At thisseason a few individuals had yielded to sexual impulses so far as totolerate association in a territory with a member of the opposite sex.Most of the birds, however, either were in the undecided condition of 160 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMthese two birds or were inactive sexually. It is significant that somepairing activity occurs previous to any perceptible increase in thegonads.In the vicinity of the Pinole, Contra Costa County, Calif., earlyin January 1930, I located several single shrikes and studied andmapped their territories. Later, at the time when these shrikes paired,and nested, there was no change in the size or limits of the territories,two birds and finally the entire family remaining within the confinesof the area once occupied by but one of the parents. In most casesthe sex of the original owner of the territory used for nesting wasnot known with certainty. In one instance a territory was first lo-cated when seemingly but one bird was present. This bird later provedto be a female, fortunatelj'^, in this case, mating with a bird sufficientlydifferent in coloration as to be individually distinguishable in thefield. The female, when discovered on February 7, I followed aboutover her territory for some time, and so I was able to outline thearea occupied. Had the bird been paired at this time, I am confidentfrom other experiences that the mate would have been seen. ByFebruary 10 a male had joined this female and they were constantlyclose together.Other solitary birds were found to be joined by mates late in Januaryand still others not until March. Occasionally some minor shifts inthe territorial limits may be made when the winter territories areconverted into breeding territories, in one observed instance with theseeming purpose of including a desirable nest tree. The completeabandonment of some winter territories is inevitable if pairs are to beformed ; disappearances of this kind were noted in a few instances inJanuary.The size and shape of the territory, whether breeding or feeding,are dependent upon several factors, namely : the floral habitat occu-pied, whether an open prairie or a moderately wooded area ; the con-centration of the food supply and the provision of nest sites; thelocal abundance of the species ; and the local associational or physicalbarriers.There is a marked difference in sizes of territories in California, andthis apparently is correlated with habitat and concomitant variationsin food supply. Territories in grassy hills and meadows with scat-tered oaks, eucalyptus, and lines of willows ranged from 11 to 14 acresin size in Contra Costa County, but in semidesert terrain consistingof much bare ground, widely spaced bushes, and few trees ; in KernCounty (race Lanius ludovicianus nevadensis) territories consistedof 25 to 40 acres.In parts of the northern San Joaquin Valley, where the shrikepopulation is large, nearly every individual's territory is bounded onall sides by other shrikes. But in the neighborhood of Pinole shrikes ^ CALIFORNIA SHRIKE 161hold territories limited by physical and associational barriers. Thus,one pair was bounded to the south and northeast by steep hills, notprohibitive to shrikes, but not so desirable as the flat meadow whichthey occupied. To the east this j^air was limited by the holdings ofanother pair of shrikes ; I witnessed several encounters between them.To the west there was no change in association, no physical barrier,and no other shrikes, yet this pair moved only a limited distance in awesterly direction. Habit and lack of need for further foragingground apparently had fixed the western boundary.The defense of a territory is coincident partly with the foraginghabits of the bird, which keep it in more or less conspicuous, openplaces. While a strike is hunting for food it can at the same timesee large parts of its territory. Detection of invaders is by sight,less commonly by sound. When not engaged in active feeding, whichoften is conducted from low^ perches, the shrike always tends to mountto some high exposed position of observation. Here its ready visibilityaided by characteristic form and contrasting markings serves to adver-tise at considerable distances its possession of the area. This advertise-ment is aided by song and by the familiar series of 4 to 10 or 12 screechesof progressively diminishing intensity. Loggerhead shrikes are inthe greatest degree silent during the nesting season, at which timeadult birds have reached the annual minimum in numbers and terri-torial boundaries are well established. More constant, though lessecstatic, songs and screeches are given late in summer and in autumnwhen competition in the possession of territories is more severe. Therhythmic summer song then seems certainly to be given for the pur-pose of warning invaders. A bird in summer or fall perched quietlyon a wire or tree top suddenly, and without apparent reason, will breakout with its series of violent screeches. No other shrike appears, thebird is not watching any particular prey, and it settles back again intoquiet waiting. The screech seems merely an expression of the bird'spresence, an indication of a potential aggi^essiveness to defend itsposition.At Pinole I once witnessed a vigorous attack by the defender.Members of the resident pair were sitting on fence posts about 10yards apart, one bird, probably the male, singing occasionally. Asuccession of sharp notes {IjBcelc) was heard from a third shrike, whichhad appeared at the edge of the territory about GO yards distant.This was immediately answered by similar notes from the defending"male." The invader sang a few trills, then came closer, approachingthe "male" of the resident pair and sat on the adjacent fence post.The "female" of the pair was on the opposite side of the defending"male," which sat facing the invader. The two "males" remainedrigidly on guard, neither moving in the slightest. One of them, I couldnot be sure which, gave a few song trills. After about five minutes 162 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMboth birds suddenly jumped into the air, the defending "male" camewithin striking range, and a series of sharp clicks of the bill and afew screeches, low buzzing notes, and staccato vocal notes were heard.The flight of the two continued for a few yards, when the defenderreturned to the "female," which had remained quiet and seeminglyundisturbed throughout the performance. The repulsed invader tow-ered in a most erratic manner and flew high over the hills at the edgeof the valley half a mile away, apparently most intent on departingwith rapidity.In each territory there is usually what may be termed a head-quarters. The roosting place, so far as known, is situated here andusually also the nest, if the territory is used for breeding purposes.The headquarters provides good lookout perches, feeding facilities,and some sort of bush or tree for shelter at night. It is occupiedduring a large part of the day. In many territories, nevertheless,subsidiary headquarters exist. If one wishes to locate a shrike in aknown territory, a search in two or three favorable localities usuallyreveals the bird's presence. Evidently, therefore, all parts of theterritory are not used equally, yet territories are defended in theirentirety.The requisite for roosting places seems to be some support abovethe ground within a screen of overhanging limbs. Eoosts are markedby conspicuous fecal deposits. In one instance the nest was builtwithin 6 feet of a roost that had been used for a considerable periodpreviously by the female. The male roosted about 15 feet away in asimilar location among dense limbs, the site not being well markedprobably owing to his recent arrival on the territory. Arrival at theroost is commonly 35 to 40 minutes after sundown and departure inthe morning about half an hour before sunrise.Courtshif.?Two aspects of courtship should be recognized. Thefirst type of activity apparently serves to reinforce the pair's bond.It does not immediately lead to copulation and it normally occursearly in the season. Typical is the following : On January 24, mem-bers of a recently mated pair were seen sitting one foot apart ona telephone w^ire. The birds flew from the wire, one closely followingthe other. Upon alighting on a fence one of them gave a series ofscreeches of the usual rhythm but of a peculiar metallic quality, anote found to be associated always with nuptial activities. The twobirds then hopped and flitted back and forth from fence wires tofence post in what might be called a mock pursuit. After perchingquietly for several minutes on the fence, one bird attempted to alighton the post occupied by the other shrike, whereupon the two againengaged in mock pursuit. Still later one of the birds crouched nearthe other, fanned its tail, and at the same time tipped its tail upward.This action was followed by more of the metallic screeching, the per- CALIFORNIA SHRIKE 163former twice flying back and forth 20 feet above the mate, which re-mained i^erched on the fence. The flight was erratic and zigzaggingwith vertical undulations and changes in pace. It is believed that thebird performing this nuptial flight was the male.This behavior has also been seen in the period following the de-struction of a set of eggs. In some instances hovering is interpolatedin the nuptial flight. Such hovering is performed at greater heightfrom the ground than that which commonly is seen w^hen shrikesare in pursuit of prey. It is similar to the hovering of excited parentswhile in defense of small young.The second type of courtship consists of the feeding of the femaleby the male. The female postures, flutters the wings, and calls muchin the manner of a juvenal shrike. This begins in the final stages ofnest-building and continues through the laying and incubating periods.However, the feeding is much more of a routine affair after the setis laid, and one does not then note the extreme posturing and excite-ment of the laying period. Begging by the female often follows uponher noticing the male in the act of capturing food, whereas at othertimes her actions seem to arise purely from some internal sexual urge.The female in this type of courtship is the aggressor. The male usu-ally is quiet and nonresponsive to the female and may consistentlymove away from her advances. If he does respond to her entreaties,it is by rapidly and quietly approaching with food in the bill, whichfood is snatched from liim by the female. If he responds in a morepurely sexual manner, it is by a few quickly repeated ecstatic song trills.I have never seen any strutting or display of plumage by the male atthis time. Often there is a noticeable increase in the amount of songdelivered by him, although this is not given while in close companyof the female but from one of the higlier perches in the territory.Between these two phases of courtship there is a period of variablelength, when the members of a pair hunt during most of the day, re-maining within 50 yards or less of one another but rarely showingany other signs of attachment or of sexual interest. The male usuallytakes the initiative in moving about from post to post within the ter-ritory. At this time neither bird sings to any great degree. Suchsinging as does occur is performed normally by the male. But thefemale may sing, although only briefly.Nesting.?The pair, when searching for nest sites, makes an inspec-tion of various densely branched trees and bushes near the headquartersof the territory. Both birds may spend 15 minutes at a time hoppingabout through thickets of a sort not commonly frequented wdiilefeeding.The nest sites have certain general characteristics. Preference isshown for locations in dense bushes or small thickly grown trees atmedium heights, rarely less than 3 feet or more than 25 feet from the 164 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMground. Where possible the nests are hidden below the crown of thebush or tree and are placed on limbs that afford ample support forthe comparatively heavy structure. The use of old nests as founda-tions for building new structures frequently is recorded. I have ob-served this in at least five nests of gambeli.Nests have been found by me in live oaks, willows, various orchardtrees, cypress, sumac, saltbush, blackberry vines, acacias, peppertrees,and eucalyptus trees. The greatest height at which a nest has beennoted is 30 feet from the ground in the top of an acacia. Bancroftinforms me of the nesting of this race in loose tangles of baling wireabout 4 feet high and 6 feet long, Grinnell (1911) records an in-stance in comparatively barren terrain of nesting between two uprightboards of a support for telephone wires.The materials used in building the nests are extremely varied anddependent on local supply. Shrike nests commonly have an amplesubstructure of twigs, usually not more than one-quarter of an inchin diameter. Occasionally the nest is a more or less homogeneous cuplacking a base of sticks. Grass is seldom used extensively, but stalksof various annuals are employed, often taking the place of sticks ortwigs. The lining ordinarily is heavy, forming a thick felted cup witha wide margin, which frequently projects outward a distance of aninch over the stick framework. The lining includes cottonlike sub-stances principally, with smaller amounts of hair, feathers, rootlets,and bark. The lining is especially variable according to the localsupply of materials. In sheep country much use is made of wool.Wide variation occurs even in nests from the same vicinity. A fe-male of a pair at Pinole built an extremely inferior type of nest earlyin the spring of 1930. The framework was of small twigs and rootlets,rarely over 2 millimeters in diameter, which basal structure extendednot more than 1 inch beyond the narrow rim of the nest cup. The lin-ing was not over one-quarter of an inch in thickness and was com-posed of willow catkins, hair, and a few strips of bark. Likewise, thenest cup was unusually small, barely 3 inches in diameter and 2 inchesdeep. A second nest of the same sort was built by this pair, whichwas only slightly more substantial than the first. The first nest hadbecome dislodged from its precarious position among the small twigsof a willow and had allowed the small young to fall to the ground. Incontrast to the efforts of this pair was the series of three nests builtby another female, each of which was lined to the extent of nearly aninch in thickness. The cups of these nests were 4 inches across, andthe maximum diameter of the entire substructure of one of the nestswas 12 inches.Nests may be situated well braced in crotches of large limbs, againstboards or other artificial supports, or among the fine dense twigs ofbushes, trees, and vines. The desirability of large limbs as supports CALIFORNIA SHRIKE 165 seems to be indicated by the fate of three nests I have observed nearPinole. The young in these nests were allowed to fall to the groundor the nests became dangerously tilted as a result of placement amongsmall branches a centimeter or less in diameter.The female builds the nest with little or no active aid of the male.The difficulty of distinguishing male and female in the field makesit hard to be sure that this is always true. To judge from the actionsof pairs in which the sexes of the birds were known, the male usuallyfollows the female while she is gathering material, and he may gowith her to the nest but, in my experience, has not been seen to touchthe nest or to bring material to the female (see however, Johnson, 1938,with respect to Lanius ludovlclanus migrans). He may sit within afoot of the female while she is building. California shrikes areextremely shy while engaged in nest construction and will ceaseactivity when the nest is approached within 60 yards. It is difficult,therefore, to observe the manipulation of material at the site, whichis usually well hidden from view. Foraging for material is con-ducted, for the most part, within a radius of 50 yards of the nest.The greatest distance that I have observed a bird transport substancesdesigned for the nest is 100 yards. Nevertheless, on occasion it isfairly certain that materials are obtained at even greater distancesfrom the nest. One female was seen to go to an old Bullock's oriole'snest constructed of hair and tug vigorously at the edge, finally secur-ing small pieces of the rim which it carried directly to its own nest.Eggs.?With gamheVi., in the vicinity of San Francisco Bay, sets ofseven eggs are as common as those of five, six being the usual number.In San Diego County, Calif., on the other hand, Bancroft states thatganibeli lays five or six eggs, usually five. Likewise, I have takenimmerous complete sets of five eggs in western Los Angeles County.The time of laying of first sets ranges from April and early in Mayin the north to late in March and early in Aj^ril in the San Diegandistrict of California. Occasionally sets of eggs are found in Febru-ary in southern California. Second broods and replacement ofdestroyed nests may prolong the laying period into the early part ofJuly.Eggs of the loggerhead shrike vary from dull white to either lightneutral gray or buff in ground color. The spots are usually small,the maximum diameter in most eggs being about 21/^ millimeters, butoccasionally spots and splotches as large as 6i/^ millimeters occur.The sharply defined surface markings vary from neutral gray to vari-ous tones of yellowish brown and umber. There also are indistinctlight gray spots deposited in layers beneath the surface of the eggshell.Occasionally, fine black scrawlings appear near the large end of theeggs. Spots are more concentrated at the large end but rarely aregrouped into pronounced blotches with intervening unpigmented 166 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM areas. A wreath of spots about the large end rarely is present. Outof 150 eggs of Lanius ludovlcianus examined by me, 6 instances ofreversal of the color pattern, that is, heavy pigmentation on the smallend of the egg, have been noted. Four of these examples were in thesame set of eggs.The measurements of 97 eggs average 24.1 by 18,5 millimeters;extreme measurements are 26.9 and 22.0 for length and 19,4 and 17.3for width. The average and extreme weights of 100 eggs weighed byHanna (1924) and myself are : 4.64 gm. (5.7-3.6).Incubation.?The female alone incubates and begins to cover theeggs usually with the laying of the next to last egg of the set. Theincubation period is 16 days.The female leaves the nest only for short intervals and dependslargely upon the male for her supply of food. Usually the femaleattempts to return and cover the eggs within five minutes after havingbeen flushed from the nest, unless she is an especially wary individual.When settling upon the eggs the shrike usually spends several secondsin moving about rather vigorously, adjusting the clutch so that it willbe well covered and included between the two ventral feather tractson the breast and belly. The incubating bird faces in various direc-tions while on the nest, often turning toward an observer as if betterto watch for danger. It has been repeatedly recorded in my notesthat eggs in sets are arranged in a definite order in the nest accordingto the direction in which the bird previously had been facing duringincubation. Sets of six eggs usually are arranged in a double row ofthree, the row paralleling the long axis of the bird's body. The align-ing of the eggs in a double row appears best suited to the brooding ofa large sized set by a bird of the narrow proportions of a shrike.The male feeds the female while she is either on the nest or in thenear vicinity of it when she has left incubation to meet the male. Thefood is not placed in the mouth but, as during the period before in-cubation, is snatched from the male's bill and is swallowed at onceor, if necessary, first is broken into pieces or impaled. When fedwhile incubating, the female either stands up in the bottom of thenest or else remains settled on the eggs and allows the male to approachclose enough to enable her to reach the food in his bill. Wlien thepair is not at the nest, the male usually does not approach the femalebut waits for her to come and take the food from him.At a nest at Pinole, between 6 and 6 : 30 a. m., the female was fedfive times. On this date, March 31, 1930, sunrise was at 6: 16 a. m.Later in the morning the male did not appear at the nest more fre-quently than every half hour, and on a later date in the afternoon,45 minutes elapsed withovit feeding. Occasionally the female mayforage for herself within 50 yards of the nest tree ; especially is thisdone if the male is absent. An estimate of the source of the food CALIFORNIA SHRIKE 167supply of the incubating fenicale would place responsibility for theprovision of at least 80 percent upon the male.The boldness displayed by the birds when the nest is approachedby an observer is highly variable. They are less audacious thanwhen there are young present. Some individuals approach within 2feet, whereas others do not approach within 100 feet or more. Simi-larly, some females tolerate an approach while incubating of 1 or 2feet, others leaving the nest at distances of 50 to 100 feet. Any onebird will vary in its boldness to remain on the nest, depending on theweather conditions, not on the advance of incubation.Demonstrations at the nest in an endeavor to repulse an intruderinclude clicking notes, prolonged jaylike notes, schgra-a-a^ and to alesser degree the customary series of intense screeches of progressivelydiminishing intensity. Snapping of the bill has been observed duringa rush toward the observer. In their excitement the tail frequentlyis fanned, and also flicked sideways or up and down, the feathers ofthe back and head are elevated, the body is depressed with the headlowered, and the beak often is held open. Such attitudes are alter-nated with periods of fear when the feathers are adpressed to thebody and the head raised accompanying a retreat, or anticipatedretreat, to safer distances. The female has been seen suddenly tostart begging during the height of her excitement. On other occa-sions shrikes have been seen hovering in the air over the nest tree orabout the head of the observer. In some pairs the male is the moreactive defender, while in others the female is the more aggressive ofthe two. Nevertheless, when there is no major disturbance in prog-ress, the male is usually the one to chase other species of birds fromthe vicinity of the nest site.Young.?As the young crack open the shells, the greatly driedallantois may stick to the abdomen and cause the lower half of theshell to remain in contact with the bird. Once a female was watchedAvhile she sat quietly on the nest on tlie morning of the day whenfive of the young hatched. She was seen to stand up suddenly, moveto the edge of the nest, and then tug and pull at an empty eggshell,which after three or four efforts was freed from the nest, carried to adistance of about 20 yards, and there dropped.Young just hatched are bright orange with apricot-yellow bill andfoet ; the skin is smooth with few wrinkles and down is nearly lacking,being limited to two single rows of short wdiite neossoptiles on eachof the posterior abdominal regions of the ventral tract and a fewsimilar neossoptiles on the elbows.For at least an hour after hatching the young bird does not beg forfood, but soon after commences to raise the head when it is touchedor when the nest is jarred. The margin of the open mouth is con-spicuously outlined with yellow, but the inside of the mouth is a deep J 68 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMpink with no special markings. Faint thin notes, tsp^ tsp^ are givenby the young as the head is held unsteadily upward.The actions of the adults during the first day are not especiallydifferent from their actions during the incubation period, and thereis no increase in their efforts to defend the nest. The female broodsnearly as constantly as during incubation. Tlie male procures almostall the food for the family and delivers it to the female, which eitherpasses it on to the young or eats it herself. On several occasions amale was seen to approach the nest and sit beside it while the femalewas absent. He refrained from sitting on the nest and did not feedthe young. The food that is brought to the nest is of such small sizeas to be, to the observer, invisible within the bill of the adult. Dark-colored parts of insects may bo discerned through the skin of theunder surfaces of the young. What appeared to be the elytra ofsmall beetles, one-half centimeter in length, were visible in oneinstance.On the third day a captive nestling disgorged a pellet 11 millimetersin length containing parts of dermestids and the hard muscular por-tions of the digestive tracts of snails I had fed to it during the morn-ing of the same day. Also included in the pellet was a nearly com-plete femur, 9 millimeters long, of a small grasshopper that had beenfed by the parents at least 24 hours previously. When passing fecalmasses the hind quarters are elevated and the head thrust down.The fecal mass is inclosed in a firm mucous envelope, in a position fromwhich it readily may be removed by a parent.In the wild the parents had difficulty in inducing young to raisetheir heads, for, several times, the female upon approaching withfood waited on the nest edge and, failing in her attempt to feed theyoung, swallowed the food herself. On another occasion, when theyoung failed to respond, she gave a faint, low-pitched, burred note,which resulted in an immediate begging for food. Seemingly anauditory stimulus had been necessary to arouse the brood. I thenapproached the nest, found the birds nonresponsive to touch or tojarring of the nest, and attempted a rough imitation of the nest callthat the female had just given. The response was immediate, severalheads being raised. Apparently at this age the young are able toreceive sufficient food early in the morning to satisfy their hungerfor a period of several hours lasting through the middle of the day.On the fourth day the male was observed to feed the young for thefirst time and at the same time was heard to give the nest call similarto that given by the female. The male fed only when the female wasabsent from the nest. If she was present, food was delivered to her.A large part of the food brought by the parents is now visible in thebill. It was estimated that the female by this time is responsible CALIFORNIA SHRIKE 169for the capture of about 40 percent of the food of tlie family. Shestill spends much time brooding and occasionally eats food broughtb}^ the male, but rarely begging for it. The young may be left un-brooded for periods of 20 minutes, whereas earlier they were leftfor but intervals of about 5 minutes even at midday. The anxiety ofthe female to cover the young is regulated by the temperature. Latein the evening attempts to return to the nest v/hile I was weighingthe young were more frequent and bold than at midday when tempera-tures were as high as 75? F.Brooding still occupies 50 percent of the time of the female on thesixth day. The male and to some extent the female are much moredemonstrative against intruders than previously, coming closer andmaking more elaborate attacks upon them. Frequently adidts haveflown at my head, coming within a foot. It has been reported byseveral competent observers that at times the parent will even strikethe intruder during these attacks. Late in the afternoon at onenest tlie young were hungry continuously, opening their mouths inresponse to nil manner of stimuli and attempting to swallow fingersor even the ^vings of other nestlings that, through jostling, happenedto be placed inside their open mouths. Nevertheless, the parent fedbut three times in 45 minutes.On the seventh day the brood in one nest was banded. The female,when allowed to return, eyed the nest and picked at the bands, soonlifting one of them up as though extracting a fecal sac. Finding theband attached to the young, she made a more vigorous effort andfinally pulled the band and the leg up above the rim of the nest. Thenext effort dislodged the juvenile, and the female started to leavethe nest with the band in her bill and the young dangling beneath.She flew only 6 feet in the direction of the customary depository forfecal masses and then fluttered to the ground. Considerable con-sternation was registered by both parents; they inspected the juvenileas it lay on the bare ground and screeched and hovered over it. After10 minutes the female returned to the nest to brood. Fearing that thebird on the ground had been deserted completely, I replaced it in thenest. Subsequently, at each visit to the nest, the female made aneffort to remove the bands but never again proceeded so far as toextract a young bird. Finally, after about 10 such efforts at intervalsof 5 or 10 minutes, each effort decreasing in intensity, the bird ceasedto pick at the bands. Through repeated trial and error she had cometo recognize that this type of foreign material could not be removedsuccessfully from the nest. After the juvenile that had been droppedto the ground was returned to the nest, the female several times leftthe nest and hovered and hopped about the spot where it had been.The inference would be that the shrike does not sense the number of843290?50 12 170 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMyoung in its brood ; furtliermore, it returns to its young by reason of amemory for location, not necessarily because the young are sighted orheard.By the twelfth day the young cannot yet stand upright on themetatarsus and hold their heads erect, yet they keep the eyes openand watch objects that move about near them. When the parents arescreeching, the young refuse to open their mouths and they lie quietand low in the nest. After the parents have been absent for severalminutes, they respond to touch with the hunger reaction and seem tolose their fear. The fear attitude is reestablished with the recurrenceof screeching and fluttering by the adults. The food call changesfrom fsp to a husky tcheeh. The adults now become much warier, andbrooding practically ceases. Wlien away from the nest, the femaleoften sits near the male while he forages, as during the period previousto nest-building. She procures at least half of the food of the young.Occasionally she begs feebly from the male and may receive food,which she eats herself. The male seldom brings food to be deliveredto the young by the female, but instead he feeds it directly to them.By the fifteenth day the young are well feathered, the tips of theremiges forming a continuous flight surface. The weight of juvenileson the sixteenth day nearly reaches tliat of adults, there being no de-cline in weight previous to this time although the rate of increase isrelatively more gradual during the two or three days preceding. It islikely that in the wild a marked drop in weight follows departurefrom the nest. In the brood raised in captivity a decline of about4 or 5 grams accompanied the first efforts of the young to hop aboutoutside of the nest box. At this age the young in the wild squat low inthe nest when approached by the observer and, when pulled from thenest, jump and flutter in their efforts to escape. They are belligerentand peck at the hand when captured. Handling of the young, andtheir screeches, make the adults frantic, and at such times both parents,in their excitement, have been heard giving the begging notes. "\'\nienthe juveniles are left on the ground they hop about giving a note indi-cated as screig^ which is uttered at intervals of 10 to 20 seconds. Thesound appears to be a "location note," that is, it serves to indicate tothe parents the changing locations of the young. The young progresson the ground by hopping, the entire length of the metatarsus touchingthe ground. In trees and bushes they perch and jump distances of?> to 6 inches, often falling and fluttering frantically as they cling totwigs and regain their balance. Progression on the ground or in treesis always upward. Young once removed from the nest when replacedusually will not remain but move off through the surrounding brushand, reaching a distance of several feet, sit motionless. In one in-stance, however, three young returned to a nest from the surroundingtree, a distance of at least 10 feet. _ CALIFORNIA SHRIKE 171On the twentieth day four of the young at a nest near Pinole stillwere perched on the much flattened and excrement-stained nest, whichfor only the preceding four days the parents had failed to keep clean.The young hopped off through the trees while I was yet 6 feet from thenest. This day may be considered as the normal time of final depar-ture from the nest when broods are unmolested.Feeding still occurs at short intervals. It was estimated that thesolitary female parent of one brood brought food 21 times between9 and 10 a. m. on the twentieth day. Most of the foraging was donewithin 70 yards of the nest. The six young of this brood all were in thenest tree or in the willow adjacent ; they occasionally gave the "locationnote." When the female appeared in flight moving toward the nesttree, the typical rhythmic wheedling or begging notes were givensimultaneously by many, if not all, of the juveniles. This note had notbeen heard previous to the twentieth day. This latest and final typeof food call of the young is accompanied by a flutter of the wings.Parent birds during this period are shy and usually do not attack in-truders unless the young are captured or caused to move from theirhiding places in the foliage of trees and bushes.Between the twenty-sixth and thirty-fifth days the parents continueto feed the young, but at the same time the young are learning to foragefor themselves. By the end of the period the juveniles frequentlydrop to the ground and feed, although they beg and follow their par-ents when the adults are in sight. The young still tend to stay groupedtogether but now perch in conspicuous places much of the time. Asearly as the thirtieth day the J^oung range over the entire territory butmake their headquarters near the nest.Captive birds began drinking water and attempting to bathe on thethirtieth day. When 39 daj's old a bird sang the usual juvenal, mock-ingbirdlike song for the first time, the first efforts being, to the humanear, rather grotesque. The clicking vocal notes develop on the twenty-fifth day in a feeble, but recognizable, form ; impaling of food itemsbegins about the fortieth day.Second nestings are begun while the adults are still feeding youngof the first brood, but not all pairs undertake a second brood. Onepair had a new nest with fresh eggs when the young of the first broodwere 46 days old.Plumages.?The natal down is scanty and is white (see p. 167) . Thejuvenal plumage, which is acquired almost entirely before the youngleave the nest, is lighter colored and less compact than that of theadult.Juvenal coloration is as follows : Uppeeparts : pileum and hind necksmoke gray, each feather witli two dusky bars ; back olive-gray, eachfeather usually with narrow smoke-gray tip and a dusky bar; lateralscapulars dull white distally, each with a distinct bar near tip followed 172 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMby a less distinct bar proximally ; the more median scapulars (not theinterscapulars) and bases of lateral scapulars light olive-gray ; rumpand upper tail coverts light drab or clay color, each feather with twodusky bands ; frontal tufts gray ; bristles black ; lores gray ; antorbital,suborbital, and auricular regions varying from dull black to hairbrown. Underparts: chin and throat white; malar region vermic-ulated with dusky and frequently sparingly tipped with black;breast, sides, and flanks light smoke gray, each feather with twodusky bars ; belly and under tail coverts white with dusky spots andbars occasionally occurring on tips. Wings: primaries dull black,both webs white basally (except outer w^eb of No. 10) but with whitemore abrupll}'^ defined on outer web; primary 5 slightly tipped withlight buif, primaries 4, 3, 2, and 1 with progressively broader dull whitetips ; secondaries dull black fading basally to gray on margin of innerwebs ; tips of distal secondaries dull white changing to vinaceous-buffor cinnamon-buff on inner secondaries ; greater secondary coverts withclay color tips and median subterminal dots or bars ; all middle andupper marginal coverts of forearm similarly tipped and barred withcinnamon-buff. Tail : four middle rectrices black, with 2.0 millimetertips of clay color or cinnamon-buff, frequently with a subterminal buffnot separate from tip ; other rectrices black, extensively but un'equallytipped with light buff or white ; outer Avebb of outermost rectrices en-tirely buff or white.The first annual plumage is acquired by a partial postjuvenal moltin which the body, plumage, and a variable number, but not all, of tlieprimaries and secondaries are replaced. The white-tipped juvenalprimary coverts are retained throughout the first year, these togetherwith the browner juvenal flight feathers serving to distinguish thefirst-year birds from adults. There is a prenuptial molt of limitedextent, involving a few body feathers only. (For detailed descriptionof postjuvenal plumages and the variations in completeness of thepostjuvenal molt, see Miller, 1928 and 1931.)Food.?The food of the American shrikes has received special treat-ment by Judd (1898) and by Bcal and McAtee (1912). From an in-spection of the reports of stomach contents of birds collected by meand from my own field observations, I am inclined to think that shrikespossess an almost indiscriminate taste for all sorts of animal matter.That is to say, if food properly attracts the attention of a shrike andif it is within its power to obtain it, there are few kinds of animals thatare rejected because of unsuitable flavor or consistency. For example,millipeds and beetles that possess odors obnoxious to human beings areeaten by shrikes, although perhaps without relish.Judd shows that vertebrate food of loggerhead shrikes may amountto as much as 76 percent of the diet during the winter months, butduring the remainder of the year it is only 28 percent of the total food CALIFORNIA SHRIKE 173taken. However, samples of the stomach contents of gambeli in win-ter show it never takes as much as TO percent of vertebrate food. BothJudd and Beal and McAtee have mentioned the fact that gaDibeliseems to take fewer birds and mammals than do t]ie eastern races ofthe species. This is believed to be dne to a more constant supply ofinsects throughout the year in the range of gamljell in California.Beal and McAtee estimate that vertebrate food during the entire yearamounts to onlj^ 12 percent in the western races, principally ganibeli.In the San Joaquin Valley of California small rodents occur in thestomachs of shrikes more commonly late in summer than in winter.At this season there is a flux in the populations of Reithrodontomysand Perognathus in California. Specimens of gambeli taken aboutalfalfa fields, grainfields, and orchards usually have captured no mice.Contrasted with these conditions are those found in areas in the SanJoaquin Valley where the sparse native brusli is undisturbed, moresmall rodents having been taken by the shrikes in these localities.Birds, chiefly small passerines, at no time comprise more than 15percent of the food.Li regions where reptiles are common, these animals may amount to7 or 8 percent of the diet. Some of the forms recorded as eaten orimpaled are : Ufa sp., Scelo'ponis sp., Cnemidophonis tessellatus,Phrynosoma^ Gerrhonotus^ Diadophis, and ThamnopMs. Snakes aslong as 18 inches may be successfully attacked.Among the insects, the Orthoptera are variously estimated as con-stituting 30 percent to 75 percent of the total food. The higher per-centages recorded for insects of this order occur at the times of yearwhen grasshoppers increase to plague proportions. Bryant (1912)concluded that grasshoppers at Los Banos, Calif., reached an abmi-dance of 20 to 30 per square j^ard during a plague in July 1912. Atsuch times California shrikes were found to eat 47 percent of grass-hoppers alone. Aside from the many species of grasshoppers andlocusts preyed upon by Lanius ludovicianus should be mentioned theGryllidae and Stenopelmatus. In California, Stenopelmatus is eatenparticularly during the rainy season when it may be encountered fre-quently in fields or pasturelands.Members of the Coleoptera comprise only 20 percent of the bulk ofthe food but are represented by a large number of individual animals.Of the 20 percent, the Carabidae contribute 7 percent.In summarizing the factors that govern the kinds of food eaten byshrikes, I should mention first the factor of the size of prey. Animalstoo small to compensate for the energy expended by a shrike in procur-ing them mark tho, lower limit of size. The maximum size of prey isdetermined by the limits of the powers of the shrike to overtake andkill large-sized animals. When large animals are available, these per- 174 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMhaps are preferred to smaller animals, since one or two captures withthe aid of the impaling reactions may provide food for an entire day.Secondly, in any habitat at any particular season there exists one ormore optimum types of prey, that is to say, animals that by reason oftheir abundance in the habitat and the efficiency with which they maybe captured are most commonly used as food. Obviously, the effi-ciency with which food is captured in turn depends on a delicatelyadjusted equilibrium between the many protecting devices on the partof the prey and the detecting powers of the shrikes.Behavior.?The most profitable method of foraging, although notthe one commonly observed, is what I have termed active hunting. Thisactivity occurs usually early in the morning and at dusk in the evening.The actions as seen in gambeli consist principally of perching onobjects 6 inches to 6 feet above ground where prey clearly may beseen moving within a radius of a few yards. At times the ground orlow bushes are resorted to, and the bird hops about in these places insearch of animals. The shrikes in moving rapidly from perch to perchfly close to the ground. Instead of waiting indefinitely on a perchuntil prey is sighted, if food is not secured from a certain post withina minute or two, the bird moves on to another part of its territory.Much or all of the territory may be covered in a short time as a result ofthese tactics.Contrasted with active hunting is passive hunting, which is notedcommonly during a large part of the day at times other than whenadults are engaged in feeding young. It is conducted from relativelyhigh perches that at the same time may serve as territorial lookoutposts. Food is captured at distances from the perches of 10 to 150feet, and there are extended intervals, often 10 to 30 minutes in dura-tion, when no food is taken. The passive form of hunting occurs whendigestion and i^ellet formation are in progress, the results of the earlymorning active hunting.A less common method of foraging is the capturing of insects in theair, the birds maneuvering as do kingbirds, although in an awkwardfashion. Dragonflies are caught in this manner. The actions con-sist of darting out into the air at insects as they fly past, the shrikeoften towering many feet above its perch.The flight toward prey on or near the ground commonly is a nearlyvertical or diagonal plunge either with set wings or, if necessary, ac-companied by rapid wing motion. Hovering frequently is observedat the end of the approach flight and is either a searching device orserves to allow the bird better to judge the succeeding stages in theattack. Shrikes are adept at following prey that may fly or run fromthem. They are aided in this by the short, rapidly moving wings andlong tail, which enable them to change rapidly the direction of theirflight. CALIFORNIA SHRIKE 175The worrying of prey that is difficult to kill is most persistent. Cap-tive shrikes often spend half an hour at a time in attempting to killlarge-sized mice and, failing in their efforts, will worry the mice atintervals during the greater part of a day.The initial thrust at prey is with the bill. The effective motion isnot a jjounding or driving action with the end of the beak but a rapidbiting motion of the tip of the lower mandible against the tomial toothof the upper mandible. The killing mechanism, then, is a ciuick cut orsnip of the bill.After the initial successful thrust with the bill, a series of rapidbiting motions follows and sometimes also shaking or pounding of theprey against the ground or perch. In the case of large animals ashrike commonly stands motionless for several seconds, and often min-utes, after the animal is dead before further disposing of its catch.The impaling habit of shrikes is the result of a lack of sufficientlypowerful feet to hold the prey while it is being torn to pieces, thornsor crotches being used in order to hold the food vrhile it is being eaten.Once a shrike has killed or injured its prey to the extent that it isincapable of escape, the food is further disposed of in one of twodifferent ways : it is either impaled or else almost innnediately eaten.If the food is smaller than about a centimeter in its greatest dimen-sions, it is swallowed at once or is taken to an elevated feeding orlookout post and there eaten.Occasionally the feet are used to grasp small prey so as to obtain afresh hold with the bill. The degree to which the foot is used in thisway varies with individual shrikes. When food is held in one foot,the bird does not use that foot to support its weight. I have failed tonote any instances of shrikes holding their prey against a perch oragainst the ground by standing on it, as do jays and hawks. To peckat or tear at food in the foot, as occasionally is done, the shrike seemsrequired by its structure to hold the foot forvrard of the positionnormally taken in perching.I have seen caged birds repeatedly attempt to ingest food that theyeither had failed to break up by impaling or feared would be takenfrom them, Mith the result that they were forced to disgorge. Severaltimes I have seen the foot used to extract objects which were stuck inthe mouth. In these instances the foot was not thrust into the mouthbut passed along the side of the head, the claws catching hold ofprojecting parts of the food at the angle of the mouth.As a ride large objects that must be impaled before being eaten arecarried during flight, in the bill, but occasionally in the feet. Esterly(1917) reports the actions of a California shrike as follows : The shrike flew against a window pane near where I was, and dropped a dead"White-crown." When the sparrow was piclied up again it was seized by theneck, and the shrike flew off with it. But before it had gone more than a yard, 176 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMand while about a foot in the air, tlie slirilie released its hold on the neck of theprey, and, without hesitating or altering its course, caught the sparrow in its feet.The flight was continued for about fifteen yards, and then the shrilie droppedto the ground. It started off at once and the same behavior was repeated ; theprey was picked up by the neck with tlie beak and tliis hold was given up, whileflying, for the hawk hold. The substitution is almost instantaneous ; the burdendoes not drop perceptibly and tlie flight is continuous and steady.This observation on behavior, although entirely reliable, must beconsidered as abnormal, for most shrikes certainly do not handle theirprey in this fashion.With large-sized prey, shrikes resort to special impaling stationswithin the territory. The variety of impaling devices is great andindicates a generalization of the inherited reaction, permitting indi-vidual adaptability in the matter of finding and experimenting withthe most effective means for the fixation of food. The first attemptsof juveniles at impaling have been noted in cage birds. These consistof dragging the food along the perches with a jerking motion, the headheld low and the long axis of the bill paralleling the perch. If nailsare provided in tlie perches, the food on encountering these obstaclesoffers resistance to the bird, which continues to tug and may on occasionthus firmly lodge the food on the nails. Subsequently, small bits arepicked from the impaled mass, first gently, but later they are tornloose with great vigor.Well-known examples of trees and plants used for impaling areorange, yucca, saltbush, and some cactuses. The use of barbed wireis widespread wherever this is available. Ends of broken branchesalso are used extensively. I have observed a California shrike slipthe abdomen of a Stenopelmatus over a broken willow twig one-fourthof an inch in diameter, fitting it on tightly, and then proceed to tearoft' bits from the open anterior end of the abdomen. My cage birdsbecame accustomed to impaling upon the split end of a small brokenbranch as well as upon nails driven through their perches.If shrikes are hungry wdien large prey is impaled, they eat enoughto gorge themselves thoroughly, xis much a 7 grams of food may beeaten at a single feeding. If the impaled food amounts to morethan this in bulk, the remainder may be left hanging. The shrikereturns to the food during succeeding hours and usually eats it to thelast morsel. iVs a storing device, impaling is useful for periods ofa day or two onlj', unless climatic conditions favor the preservationof the animal food for longer intervals of time. Impaled objects arecomparable to the kills of large predatory mammals, and, so long asthey are still edible, ih^ shrike returns to them unless more recent killsoccupy its attention. Storage in its true form involves gathering to-gether a considerable quantity of food for future use without at thetime partaking of it extensively. The object of the American shrikes'habit of impaling, then, is not truly storage. When concentration of CALIFORNIA SHRIKE 177impaled objects does occur it is due to the habitual return of theshrike to a successful impaling station because of the facilities avail-able there for the ready handling of the prey, not because of a desireto store or concentrate food. In inspecting numerous shrike impal-ings I find that where abundant impaling situations, such as barbed-wire fences, are at hand, the unfinished meals of shrikes are distributedalong such fences at considerable intervals. Concentrations of im-palings such as often do occur probably result from a scarcity ofimpaling facilities in a territory.A considerable portion of the deserted impalings consists of partsof animals that would seem to be less desirable as food. Jaws oflizards, the hard heads of Stenopclmatus, partly picked bones of mice,and the wings and tails of birds are samples of deserted parts thatappear on the average more abundantly than do soft-bodied insectsand the flesh of vertebrates. Recent, although deserted, impalingsdo not appear in the same abundance at all times of year in California.During the middle of winter they are rare, and I have never foundthem where young or brooding females were being fed. The seasonof their greatest abundance is late in summer and in fall.Voice.?Most of the utterances of California shrikes have beenmentioned in earlier sections, but they may here be reviewed. Thespring song of the male consists of short trills or combinations ofclear notes repeated a number of times, yet varied in rhythm, pitch,and quality. For example, each of the separate parts or units ofthe song may be primarily a trill with three or four distinguishablethrobs in it. The quality of the trill often is described as liquid, butthe trill also contains harsher, burred qualities. Added to this trillare clear, usually sharp, descending or ascending terminal notes.Other songs lack a trill, two or three clear or burred notes, variouslyaccented and pitched, constituting the unit of song. Still other indi-viduals precede a trill by clear notes. The most characteristic featuresof the California shrike's song are not pitch or the structure of theunit song of a series but rather the rhythmic repetition of song unitsand certain general tonal qualities impossible of description or evenexact imitation. The units of song are repeated at an average ofone every two seconds, but the rhythm may be more rapid if the songunit is especially short.The feeding territory song of gamheli given late in summer by malesand females alike is of the same general construction as the springsong but appears to contain fewer high clear notes and more notesrough in quality and resembling the quality of the harsh screeches orbegging notes.Immature birds give a decidedly different song of a continuous sort,consisting of short screeches, gurgles, trills, and clear notes in a succes-sion quite pleasing to the human ear. It is the continuous type of 178 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMsong that has led observers to claim that shrikes imitate other birds.However, I have consistently failed to detect anything in these songsthat could definitely be called imitation. Captive juveniles that neverhad heard songs of other birds or of shrikes uttered primitive songsidentical with those given by wild shrikes. Such songs of cage birdsare purely instinctive and unlearned.The screech or call note consists of 4 to 10 or more harsh forcefulutterances of diminishing intensity, the first notes slightly higherpitched and shorter than the terminal notes, although pitch is difficultto detect in a sound so thoroughly discordant. A metallic variationof this call note occurs during nuptial displays.Single notes, schgra-a-a^ of a quality less sharp than that of thescreeches, variously repeated and resembling the huskier notes ofCyanocitta stellein, are given by birds while defending their nests.These notes are each longer in duration than a single screech of thecall-note series. This type of note also may be given while a logger-head shrike is worrying prey it cannot readily kill.Staccato clucking notes are heard during attacks upon invaders orwhen birds are in a defensive attitude.The pulsating or begging notes of young and the begging notes ofadults are extremely similar, although slight differences in quality maybe detected. The tsp and tcheep of young in the nest, fear notes ofjuveniles, the juvenile's "location note," screig, and the nest call of theparents have earlier been described.There is but one note given by cage birds that I have failed to hear inthe wild and have not seen mentioned in the literature. This is a low-pitched chuckle of weak intensity, which cage birds give when ap-proached and when completely at ease, that is to say, when they are notfrightened or in any way excited.Captive nestlings develop perfectly all the notes of wild shrikes withthe exception of the rhythmic types of song.Enemies.?Unfortunately little is known concerning causes of deathin California shrikes. These birds are moderately large, aggressive,and well equipped to fight, and it is difficult to understand what hap-pens to the relatively large number of young hatched annually.Instances of death other than by shooting I have noted have occurredas a result of accident caused by automobiles on roadways. Robert-son (1930) includes in his discussion of death of birds on roadwaysrecords of ten California shrikes found dead during one year on theroads bounding a region roughly 10 square miles in an area in southernCalifornia under his daily observation. He concludes that the mostlikely cause of death is collision with automobiles and that death is notcaused to any extent by collision with overhead wires or by shooting.Birds probably are struck down by automobiles most commonly earlyin the morning, for the road surfaces at that time are well baited with NELSON'S SHRIKE 179insects injured during the night. A shrike while killing prey is likelyto be practically oblivious to surrounding dangers, and its powers tospring rapidly into the air are relatively poor.A shrike at Firebaugh, Calif., after retiring to its roost was heardto give repeated frantic screeches when a horned owl perched on a i)olenearby. A barn owl, which approached and perched near the roostshortly after the horned owd had left, provoked no such outburst fromthe shrike. E. L, Sumner, Jr., has found the remains of shrikes inhorned-owl nests. Captive birds are greatly disturbed on being con-fronted with dead hawks or owls. Similar fear is displayed whenhawks, cats, or dogs come near them. Therefore, there is some evi-dence to indicate that shrike populations experience losses throughthe feeding activities of large predatory birds and mammals.The known parasites of shrikes rarely produce death and cannot beconsidered as contributing importantly to the death rate.Despite our ignorance concerning the causes of death in shrikes, thelife expectation of individuals can be estimated by indirect means.Usually in Lanlus ludovicianus first-year birds make up about 50 per-cent of winter populations. This means that annually half of thebreeding population of the preceding season die and are replaced byfirst-year birds. If we assume that a family group in the spring con-sists of tw^o adults and six juveniles, the succeeding year Avould, on theaverage, result in the death of one of these adults and five of the juve-niles. Most of the juveniles would be lost before leaving their parentsor during the first summer and autumn. Therefore, the juvenal andimmature death rates are high, and the average life expectation ofyoung upon leaving the nest is only about four months. The group ofimmatures that successfully passes the first winter, later, as breeding-birds, constitutes 50 percent of the total breeding population. Theo-retically, during each succeeding year this same group must undergoa 50 percent annual reduction by death.LANIUS LUDOVICIANUS NELSONI OberholserNELSON'S SHRIKEHABITSThe shrikes of this species living in the southern two-thirds of thepeninsula of Lower California have been separated by Dr. Oberholser(1918) under the above name. He describes the form as "similar toLaniiis ludovicianus gmnbeli^ but bill larger ; wdiite terminal areas onouter rectrices much smaller; upper parts averaging darker, thoughwith the upper tail-coverts more conspicuously whitish; lower surfacemore tinged with grayish, particularly on the posterior portion." Hegives as its distribution : "The southern two-thirds of Lower Califor-nia, including the adjacent islands, north to 29?30" north latitude." 180 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL AiUSEUMGriffing Bancroft (1930) says of the haunts of Nelson's shrike: "There are shrikes near Santa Kosalia. In any small canon which runsback from the Gulf and which also contains a few trees, three or four,perhaps a breeding pair, of these birds are apt to be found. They nestnear San Ignacio Lagoon and among the sand dunes along with theDesert Thrasher. They occupy, intermittently, the terrain betweenthese extremes, but only in associations either of low brush or of iso-lated trees. On the whole they are to be listed as rare birds."Nesting.?Bancroft says on this subject: "The breeding season iswell under way in March and does not extend beyond April. Eitherthree or four eggs are laid, in bulky nests of tree moss. There is nolining in the cup. The building material, which is the same through-out, is itself soft enough for the eggs." Dr. Miller (1931) says that,of the three nests found by Mr. Bancroft, "one was in a Joshua tree,one against a bank and covered with a creeping vine, and one in theheart of a growth of tumble weed." There is a set of four eggs of thisshrike in the Charles E. Doe collection, at Gainesville, Fla., that wastaken by Mr. Bancroft at a later date, March 30, 1932, at Playa Maria,Lower California. The nest was said to have been of "fine end topsand moss," and located 3 feet from the ground in a frutilla bush.J. Stuart Rowley writes to me : "In the Cape region of Lower Cali-fornia, I found this shrike not very abundant and exceedingly wary toapproach within gun range. One nest was located near Todos Santoson May 22, 1933, containing four fresh eggs, which are smaller thanthe average size of the northern races. The nest was very well con-cealed in overhanging vine tangles, but was typically of shrikeconstruction."E^ggs.?The eggs of Nelson's shrike are apparently like those of otherraces of this sjiecies. The measurements of 18 eggs average 24.9 by18.3 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 26.5 by18.5, 26.0 by 19.5, and 22.8 by 17.1 millimeters.LANIUS LUDOVICIANUS ANTHONY! MearnsISLAND SHRIKEHABITSTwo races of this species have been described from the Santa BarbaraIslands, off the coast of southern California, but only the above-namedform is recognized in the 1931 Check-list. Dr. Mearns (1898), innaming this subspecies, remarks: "This Shrike is naturally to be com-pared with Lanius ludovicmnus gartibeli Ividgway, the form commonon the adjacent coast of California, but differs in being very muchdarker as well as smaller. It is, in fact, darker than the darkest easternspecimens of L. ludovicianusy ISLAND SHRIKE 181Mr. Ridgway (1904), in comparing it with the eastern bird, callsit the "darkest of all the forms of this species. Similar in colorationto L. I. Iudovicia7ius, but gray of upper parts still darker (nearly slatecolor), especially on pileum, and more miiform, the scapulars almostwholly deep gray ; white spot at base of primaries much smaller ; underparts of body much more strongly tinged with gray, becoming dis-tinctly gray (about No, G) on sides and flanks; lateral rectrices withmuch less of white, this extending only about 22 mm. from the tip oninner web of exterior rectrix."He restricts this form to Santa Cruz Island, and names a new sub-species from San Clemente Island L. I. mearnsi, which he characterizesas "similar to L, I. anthonyi, but upper tail-coverts abruptly white,more white on scapulars, white spot at base of primaries larger, andunder parts of body much less strongly tinged with gray. In whiteupper tail-coverts, greater extent of white on posterior scapulars and atbase of primaries, similar to L. I. gambeli., but gray of upper partsvery much darker (quite as dark as in L. I. anthonyi) , and with muchless of white at base of primaries and on lateral rectrices."Ridgway's new form, mearnsi^ was at one time accepted by theA. O. U. Committee on Nomenclature, but after its validity had beenquestioned by a number of writers the name was discarded, and it neverappeared in the Check-list, The latest authority on this group. Dr.Alden H. Miller (1931), however, recognizes mearnsi as the bird ofSan Clemente Island, remarking : "Of all the subspecies of L. liido-vicianus^ mearrisz is the most isolated race and is among the mostsharply characterized subspecies of the species. Although not to beconsidered as a distinct species, it is surprising to note the doubtsthat ornithologists have entertained concerning the valdity of thisrace."He says of the range of anthonyi:The islands of Santa Catalina and Santa Cruz off the coast of southern Cali-fornia comprise most of the range of this subspecies. Santa Rosa Island maypossess a considerable population but thus far few records for this island haveappeared. Parts of Santa Cruz Island are forested with live oaks and the Mon-terey pine. In August 1022 I found shrikes in the pines and acacias at Pris-oner's Harbor and also in the scattered live oaks in the caiion leading from thispoint toward the interior of the island. Much of the habitat, however, consists ofgrasslands with small bushes in the canons. The hills and canons which theshrikes frequent are often exceedingly precipitous. Likewise, on Santa CatalinaIsland much of the habitat consists of steep hillsides covered with scrub oak,toyon, ironwood, and, in places, dense stands of opuntla cactus. * * * SanClemente Island is more arid than those islands of the Santa Barbara group onwhich anthonyi occurs."Nesting.?Dr.. Joseph Grinnell (1897) found a shrike's nest onApril 2, 1897, on San Clemente Island : "The nest was in a small bushgrowing out from the side of a canon, and was composed mostly of 182 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMsheep Tvool, with an admixture of weed steins and grasses. Fiveslightly incubated eggs constituted the set. They are not differentfrom eggs of true L. I. gamheli of the mainland."Dawson (1923) records two nests found on Santa Cruz Island, nearPrisoners Harbor, one 6 feet up in an acacia tree and the other in apollard willow. The first nest contained six eggs and the second heldfive; in both cases there were two distinct types of eggs in the nest,with three slirikes in attendance. Dr. Miller (1931) says that "Mail-liard (1899, p. 42) found two nests on the same island, one placedin a brush pile, the other in a gum (eucalyptus) tree."Eggs.?The four, five, or six eggs laid by the island shrike are ap-parently indistinguishable from those of the bird of the mainland.The measurements of 30 eggs average 25.0 by 17.5 millimeters; theeggs showing the four extremes measure 26.1 by 18.3, 24.9 by 19.7, and24.4 by 13.2 millimeters.Behavwr.?One of the most prominent characteristics of the islandshrike seems to be its shyness or its wildness. Dr. Mearns (1898)writes : All who have seen it regard it as one of the wildest of birds. On his visitsto San Clemente, in 1888 and 1889, Mr. Townsend was unable to obtain a speci-men. In 1894, Mr. Anthony and myself procured a single one?with difficulty,although Shrikes were seen daily. At night, when we went out to shoot bats,Shrilves would dash about us, uttering loud, harsh screams, differing from thevoices of any Shrilces I have heard elsewhere. In the daytime they never per-mitted us to come within range of them.Dr. Grinnell (1897) found the birds on San Clemente equallyshy : "This bird was without question the shyest and hardest to besecured of any on the island. Indeed it was as shy as any hawk Iever saw. It was tolerably common ; that is, two or three could begenerally seen during an hour's walk. There was a pair in theneighborhood of the windmill where we were camping, and nearlyevery morning a little after daybreak the male would perch eitheron the windmill or on the topmost twig of a brush pile on the oppositeside of the ravine, and utter its defiant shrike notes. The rustle ofthe tent door or the click of a gun lock, however, was sufficient to sendhim up over the ridge, not to appear again for hours."Family STURNIDAE : StarlingsSTURNUS VULGARIS VULGARIS LinnaeusSTARLINGHABITSThere are some 60 species of starlings widely scattered over theEastern Hemispliere, though none indigenous in Australia or in NewGuinea. We have only two resident species in North America, both STARLING 183introduced and long suspected to be of doubtful value. The subjectof this sketch is supposed to be of the same subspecies as that foundin western Europe, of which there are many allied races in Europeand Asia.The starling is a dominant species, well fitted to survive in thestruggle for existence, as shown by its successful competition withother species, by its steady increase in a strange land, and by itsremarkable gpread over new territory, of which we have not yetseen the end. The literature of American ornithology is flooded withreferences to its spectacular progress. This whole story might wellbe filled with this interesting phase of its life history, but space w^illpermit only a brief outline of its spread and the tremendous increasein its numbers; only the highlights among the hundreds of referencescan be shown.We probably shall never know how many unsuccessful attemptshave been made to introduce the starling into North America; Ed-ward H. Forbush (1927) mentions the following introductions: "Cincinnati, Ohio (1872-73) ; Quebec, Canada (1875) ; Worcester,Massachusetts (1884) ; Tenafly, New Jersey (1884) ; New York City(1877, 1887, 1890, 1891) ; Portland, Oregon (1889, 1892) ; Allegheny,Pennsylvania, and Springfield, Massachusetts (1897) ; and Bay Ridge,New York, about 1900," Apparently all these attempts were failuresexcept those made in New York City in 1890 and 1891. May ThacherCooke (1928) mentions an unsuccessful attempt made at WestChester, Pa., before 1850.Authorities differ somewhat as to the numbers of starling liberatedby Eugene Scheifflin in Central Park, New York, and as to the exactdates. Mr. Forbush (1927) says that 80 were liberated on March16, 1890, and 40 more on April 25, 1891. Miss Cooke (1928) saysthat 80 birds were released in April 1890 and 80 more the next year.It is generally accepted, however, that CO birds were introduced in1890 and 40 more in 1891; Dr. Chapman (1925) states that therewere only 100 birds liberated in all, and he ought to have known.From this small nucleus have descended all the vast hordes that nowoverrun the country.For the first six years, while the birds were becoming established,they were confined to greater New York City, including Brooklyn andStaten Island, though stragglers were reported in Princeton, N. J.,in 1894. Then, as the population built up, the fall and winter wander-ings began in search of new territory in which to establish a breedingrange later. By 1900 they had appeared at New Haven, Conn.,Ossining, N. Y., and Bayonne, N. J. Dr. Stone (1937) reported themat Tuckerton, N. J., in 1907, and Dr. Townsend (1920) saw the firstone in 1908 in eastern Massachusetts. During that and the next twoyears, the starlings wandered over most of Massacliusetts, up to 184 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMthe New Hampshire border, and over eastern Pennsylvania. liobieW. Tufts tells me that the first one was seen near Halifax, NovaScotia, on December 1, 1915. By 1916, according to Kalmbach andGabrielson (1921), its postbreeding wanderings extended from "southern Maine to Norfolk, Va. On November 10, 1917, one speci-men was collected as far south as Savannah, Ga. Inland it has beenseen at Rochester, N. Y., Wheeling, W. Va., and in east central Ohio."During the next 10 years starlings were variously recorded as farnorth as southern Ontario, as far west as Wisconsin, Iowa, andIllinois, and as far south as Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, andFlorida. E. C. Hoffman's (1930) map shows the range for the winterof 1929-30 as extending west to southeastern Wisconsin, eastern Iowa,including most of Missouri, southeastern Kansas, much of Oklahomaand Texas, and extending practically to the coasts of the Gulf States.It is interesting to note that the western limit of this range roughlyparallels the 1,000-foot contour line.Some interesting extreme wanderings were recorded in 1931 and1932 at Churchill, Manitoba, Moose Factory, James Bay, and theGaspe Peninsula, Quebec. Frank L. Farley tells me that one ap-peared at Camrose, Alberta, in May 1934 but none have been seen since.L. M. Dickerson (1938) has published a map showing the westernmigration frontier of the starling in the United States up to Febru-ary 1937; this touches South Dakota and eastern Nebraska andincludes a large part of Kansas and most of Oklahoma and Texas.In 1939 the starling crossed the Mexican boundary, had reachedColorado and New Mexico, and appeared at Norway House in north-ern Manitoba. A. D. Henderson writes to me that, on September 21,1940, he observed the first starling he had seen in Belvedere, Alberta;it was perched on a poplar tree with several blackbirds. Russell K.Grater tells me that he saw a large flock at Mount Carmel, KaneCounty, Utah, on January 2, 1941 ; "this flock was apparently driftingand was seen only the one day." Last, but most interesting of all,comes the westernmost record from Stanley G. Jewett (1942), whoreports a flock of about 40 starlings seen in Siskiyou County, Calif.,in January and a specimen collected there on February 4, 1942.Gabrielson and Jewett (1940) state that "in 1889 and 1892, the Port-land Song Bird Club released 35 pairs of Starlings in Portland.These birds established themselves and remained for a number ofyears, but some time about 1901 or 1902 disappeared." So, unlessthese California birds were survivors from that Oregon importation,which seems unlikely, the starling had at last reached the Pacific slope.The extension of the breeding range of the starling lags about 5years behind its spread as a fall and winter wanderer. According toDr. Chapman (1925), the starling began to breed soon after its re-lease in Central Park in 1890, for a nest was found under the eaves STARLING 185of the northeast wing of the American Museum of Natural Historythat year, for which the museum "may claim the doubtful honor ofbeing the birthplace of the first European starlings to be born inthis country."The following outline of the extension of its breeding range is takenmainly from the published maps of Dr. Chapman (1925), Kalmbachand Gabrielson (1921), and Miss Cooke (1928), together with a largenumber of published records that are deemed to be reliable. Up to1896 it was not known to breed outside of greater New York, in-cluding Brooklyn and Staten Island. In 1900 and 1902 it was foundbreeding near Norwalk, Conn., and Elizabeth, N. J. By 1906 itsbreeding range had covered about one-half of Connecticut and aboutone-half of New Jersey; and by 1910 it had covered practically allthese two States and extended its range into southern Massachusetts,and into Rhode Island. During the next four years it occupied prac-tically all Massachusetts, about one-quarter of New York, the easternquarter of Pennsylvania, and practically all Maryland. Between1916 and 1920, it extended its breeding range farther inland intoMaine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, covering most of New York,three-quarters of Pennsylvania, and a large part of Virginia. Duringthe next six years, up to 1926, its range expanded northward to coverall New England, except northern Maine, some of southern Ontario,southeastern Michigan, most of Indiana, eastern Kentucky and Ten-nessee, northeastern Georgia, and the uplands of South Carolina.Mr. Tufts tells me that the first Nova Scotia nest was found onJune 26, 1928, on a golf course in Halifax, and says: "Since then,they have become exceedingly abundant in our Province." Duringthat and the next 10 years, the starling was reported as breeding onCape Breton Island, southern Quebec, the Chicago area and otherparts of Illinois, Nebraska, Arkansas, Mississippi, and northernFlorida. How much farther it has progressed since these data wereaccumulated (1942) remains to be seen.Miss May Thacher Cooke has contributed an interesting history ofthe spread of the starling, based on the records of the Fish and Wild-life Service, which appears at the end of the distribution for thisspecies.As the starling became established in a given area, it began toincrease rapidly until its numbers approached the saturation point,when it was forced to expand its range. Thus, there was a continuousincrease going on behind the advancing pioneers, and this is stillcontinuing. Two interesting studies of this advance and the followingincrease have recently been made, based on the figures given in theBird-Lore Christmas censuses. W. J. Cartwright ( 1924) has compiledthese census figures in two very significant tables ; the first table showsthat there was only one census report from one State, New York, in843290?50 13 186 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM1900, but there were 79 reports from 10 states in 1923 ; the second tableshows that the number of birds reported increased from 4 in New Yorkin 1900 to 15,388 reported in the same 10 States in 1923. These tablesdo not claim to be absolutely accurate, as many rough estimates havebeen made by the census-takers, nor do they come anywhere nearrepresenting the total population at any one point, but they showinteresting trends.Another interesting study has since been made by Dr. LeonardWing (1943) on data collected from the same and other sources. Hismaps and figures show the spread and increase of the starling, ascompared with the more rapid spread and greater increase in numbersof the English sparrow, and are well worth careful study, for onlya few points can be mentioned here. One table shows the steadyincrease in airline spread of the starling in different directions duringthe different periods from 1901 to 1940. Based on the census reports,the spread increased from the 1901 to 1905 period to the 193G to 1940period as follows: For birds traveling westward, from 15 to 1,917miles; for birds spreading west-southwest, from 21 to 1,898 miles;and for birds spreading north-northwest, from 78 to 727 miles. Itappears that the spread was more rapid through the Southern andSouthwestern States than through the Northern States ; it also showsthat more rapid progress was made in recent than in earlier years.The figures from published sources are somewhat higher, but thetrend is similar, and the rate of increase is remarkably steady, inboth cases. He says in his summary : "The rate of spread, as measuredby percentage of area covered, was fastest in the 26-30 years (1916-1920) after its introduction."The area covered by 1940 is calculated as 2,717,161 square miles forthe Starling which is still spreading. For the English Sparrow, thearea is calculated as 3,676,427 square miles."The Starling is not limited by low altitudes but has reached areasmore than 6,000 feet above sea level."The following pertinent note was sent to me by Prof. Maurice Brooksin 1942 : "The most notable thing which can be said of the starling inWest Virginia is that it has not been able to establish itself in ourmountain forests, so far at least. Harvey Cromer, who has spent 60years at Cheat Bridge, Randolph County, and has kept his eyes open,showed me two starlings he shot there about 15 years ago. He re-garded them as a great curiosity, since he has never seen others therebefore or since. I do not know of any other records for the birds inthe spruce belt."The above observation is not to be wondered at, for it is a well-knownfact that starlings in their wanderings prefer to frequent rural andfarming districts, or even towns and cities, rather than forests andmountain regions. Consequently, as such settlements are found STARLING 187 mainly in the valleys, the birds have followed these routes in crossingwhat mountain ranges they have encountered in their travels.Milton B, Trautman (1940) says of the increase at Buckeye Lake,Ohio : "In 1922 no Starlings were recorded in the area. In 1929, 8,000were noted in a day."Now that the starling has spread so rapidly southward and westwardand has increased so enormously in its northeastern range, it hasprobably reached the limits of its abundance in some eastern sectionsof the country, and we may expect to find its numbers falling off insome places. Dr. Clarence Cottam (1943) has published some evidenceof this decline in the agricultural districts of western New York, basedon studies made there in 1932 and again in 1942. He writes: "Forabout 15 years the Starling has been the most abundant bird in north-eastern United States. Accurate counts of such an abundant, gregari-ous, and active species are almost impossible. * * * Although noexact figures can be given, it seems evident that peak numbers werereached six or eight years ago, a small but noticeable decline takingplace each succeeding year."Eeferring to the western New York area, he concluded, after thesecond study, that "it was doubtful whether, in the summer of 1942,the area contained 25 per cent of the concentration found there in 1932."A similar but less noticeable reduction of the enormous winteringflocks is believed to have occurred in the District of Columbia region,although the birds are still overabundant and constitute an annoyanceof major proportions in the Capital City. No careful study of popu-lations has been made, but a number of competent ornithologists whohave been connected with the Starling problem for many years haverepeatedly expressed their belief that there has been an encouragingreduction in the size and number of these flocks. The writer is of theopinion that there has been a reduction of 15 to 25 per cent in thepopulation wintering in this section during the past eight years."Migration.?The European starling is largely sedentary in GreatBritain, though some emigrate in the fall and return in February andMarch. But from late in September until early in November, "vastnumbers arrive from central and north Europe ; * * * some win-ter and some pass south," according to Witherbj^'s Handbook (1919).There seems to be a decided migratory movement, northeasterly in thespring and southwesterly, on the European Continent, the birds whichbreed in the Scandinavian countries and other parts of northernEurope spending the winter in Spain, the other Mediterranean coun-tries, and northern Africa. It is fair to assume that our birdsinherited from their European ancestors an instinct for this northeast-southwest trend in migration. This tendency is shown in the waythe species has spread in this country, mainly in these two directions.The southwestern spread has been more pronounced than any others ; 188 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMthis may be because the natural flocking instinct of starlings has ledto their association with grackles and blackbirds, which were driftingsouthward in large flocks in the fall. Our starlings have probablynot yet fully developed the migratory habit in its strictest sense, thatis, regular north and south migrations at definite times, such as thosemade by our native birds, but they are learning fast from their black-bird associates in both spring and fall.Many starlings remain in the m.ore northern portions of their rangeall w^inter, many others make only short flights or wander about in ahaphazard way, but there is a general fall movement toward the southand great winter concentrations at points far south of the breedingrange. In their southern roosts and concentration areas, the starlingsare intimately associated with the great flocks of grackles, red-wingedand rusty blackbirds, and cowbirds ; and when these birds start north-ward early in spring, the starlings flock along with them.There are apparently two quite distinct migration routes in theeastern United States, both northeastward in the spring and south-westward in the fall. One of these follows the Atlantic Coast Statesfrom New England to the Southern States, east of the Alleghenies.The other is an inland route, entirely west of the Alleghenies, fromeastern Quebec to the Gulf States. This latter route is well illustratedin the maps shown in an excellent paper by Edward S. Thomas (1934) , based on the results obtained by the banding of 7,062 starlings atColumbus, Ohio, in 1927, 1928, and 1929, and the recoveries from themup to April 4, 1932. The maps show that, with very few exceptions,the spring and summer recoveries were from points northeast ofColumbus and the fall recoveries were mainly from points southwestof that locality. He makes the following pertinent conclusions inhis summary:1. The European Starlings baaded at Columbus, Ohio, are highly migratory.2. A large proportion, if not the great majority of the birds banded at roosts atColumbus nest in northeastern Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, eastern Ontario,and Quebec. 3. Many of them winter to the southwest of Columbus, one of themat least, as far as Merigold, Mississippi. 4. The evidence indicates that a verysmall percentage of the birds banded at the large roosts at Columbus are perma-nent residents. 5. The individuals passing through Columbus migrate in anortheast-southwest direction, closely parelleling tlie direction of flight of thespecies in continental Europe.Nesting.?Starlings are not very particular as to where they placetheir nests, nor are they at all particular about the care of them.Their nests are slovenly and often filthy with the large amount ofexcrement voided by the young during their rather long stay in the nestand by the parents while attending them.The nests are sometimes occu-pied for several years in succession, and the accumulated mass of half-rotted material becomes quite foul. Such slovenly habits have caused STARLING 189many complaints, where nests have been built over doors or windows,or behind blinds.Almost any old hole or cavity will serve for a nesting site, but apreference seems to be shown for natural cavities in trees, or in old ornew holes made by the larger woodpeckers, such as the flicker or red-headed woodpecker. I have seen a starling watch a flicker excavatingits nest hole until it reached the proper depth to suit the former, whenthe flicker would be driven out and a starling's nest be built in the hole.The flicker excavates a new hole but is again driven out ; and this pro-cedure may be repeated until all the starlings in the neighborhoodhave been supplied with homes, or until the flicker becomes discour-aged and moves off to the nearest woods, where it can nest in peace.Nests in trees may be anywhere from 2 feet to GO feet above ground,but they are usually between 10 and 25 feet up. Woodpecker holes intelephone poles, fence posts, or dead snags are often occupied. Holesmade by hairy woodpeckers may be used occasionally, but these areusually in the woods where the starlings do not like to go ; the holesmade by the downy woodpecker are too small.Starlings are serious competitors of the bluebird, tree swallow,English sparrow, and other birds of that size that nest in bird boxes,and to a less extent of the purple martin, but often these birds are ableto defend their homes. They cannot enter boxes having entrance holesless than ll^ inches in diameter. Crested flycatchers nest in naturalcavities in old apple orchards, must meet some competition from star-lings. On June 8, 1941, W. George F. Harris and I hunted through anold orchard in Kaynham, Mass., where crested flycatchers and woodducks had nested for a number of years. The orchard was infested withstarlings, large numbers of the young, fully grown in their juvenalplumage, were flying about, evidently the products of first broods, andtheir parents were laying their second sets of eggs, one of which wefound. We flushed the flycatcher from her nest and were surprisedto find that it contained six eggs of the flycatcher and one of the star-ling. Incubation had started in three of the flycatcher's eggs, theother three and the starling's egg being perfectly fresh, indicatingthat the starling had probably laid its egg in the flycatcher's nest be-fore the latter's set was complete, perhaps while she was off the nest.While tree cavities, woodpecker holes, and bird boxes are favoritenesting sites, the starling loves to nest in any convenient cavity it canfind in or on barns, outbuildings, deserted houses or schools, undereaves of houses or those of dormer windows, about the cornices or inthe towers of buildings in cities, and in church steeples or belfries.Mr. Forbush (1927) writes: "By prying off a plank of the floor abovea chime of bells in a Long Island church-tower I was enabled to enterthe chamber above, where about thirty nests of Starlings were occu- 190 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMpied by young birds. Concealed in this dark chamber and watchingthe feeding of the young I noted that every 15 minutes when the chimeswere rung some of the machinery struck the planks beneath my feetwith a sound like that of a sledge-hammer."Witherby's Handbook (1919) says that, in England, they some-times nest in the ivy growing on the walls of buildings. W. A. Smith,of Lyndonville, N. Y., tells me that he has heard of starlings nesting inthe branches of a tree, and he sent me a nest which he thought was astarling's that was built on the ground in a "grassy meadow." He tellsme the following story : "We have a motor on an upstairs floor of ourfactory ; it is enclosed with a partition which rises from floor to ceilingand is about 3 by 3 feet square ; there is a small hole through the con-crete-block siding right near the motor, made for the purpose of ad-mitting fresh air to the motor. The starlings found this and decidedon it as a nesting place. The motor being somewhat in their way,they proceeded to cover it up with nesting material. I noticed themcarrying nesting material to the hole, as it was visible from my officewindow. They continued to carry material for several days. AfterI thought it was time for eggs, I went up to see what was in the nest.I found the largest starling's nest I have ever seen or heard about ; abushel basket would not begin to hold it. They were successful inraising their brood, as the motor was not being used at the time."Starlings' nests have also been found in holes in haystacks, holes incliffs and banks, such as the old burrows of kingfishers and bank swal-lows, and in cavities among rocks or heaps of stones. Kalmbach andGabrielson ( 1921) state that "nests have been found on fire escapes, haytracks, and barn doors, behind window shutters, and even in openboxes erected for pigeons. * * * The clogging of hay tracks ortracks of barn doors with their nests is occasionally a source of trouble,and the infesting of the immediate vicinity of their homes with birdlice is complained of when they build about water tanks, poultryhouses, etc."Starlings sometimes build their nests near those of other starlings,or even near the nests of other species, with no appearance of an-tagonism nor fear of molestation. Dr. Chapman (1925) "heard offive pairs of starlings nesting simultaneously in the hollow limbs ofa single willow tree." Mr. Forbush's experience with the colony inthe church steeple, referred to above, is a more striking example ofcolonizing. Mr. Trautman (1910) writes: "In 1928, 2 pairs nested inthe attic of a deserted schoolhouse, and at the same time and within10 feet of a pair of Barn Owls, and in the same year 2 occupiedStarling nests were found on the same side of a tree and about 3 feetapart, while between them was the occupied nest of a Red-headedWoodpecker." I have often seen starlings fly from their nests in thebases or sides of the huge stick nests of ospreys, where they find con- STARLING 191 venient crannies. In 1942 I saw a starling drive away a flicker fromits new nest in a large sycamore stub and appropriate it for its ownuse ; on the other side of the stub, about 3 feet away, was a saw-whetowl's nest with a brood of young. One of F. W. Braund's (MS.)nests was 10 feet below an occupied sparrow hawk's nest.As the nests are built in cavities, there is no necessity for buildinga well-made and compact nest. The cavity is loosely filled with amass of material in sufficient quantity to fill the space up to withina few inches of the entrance. This material consists mainly of coarseand fine grasses and straws, with sometimes rootlets, small twigs, cornhusks, a few green leaves mixed in, and occasionally bits of cloth,paper, string or other trash; the lining may consist of finer piecesof grass, or small or large amounts of poultry feathers; the latterare often mixed into the body of the nest. The size of the nest de-pends on the size of the cavity, but the inner cup is usually about 3inches in diameter.Eggs.?The starling usually lays four or five eggs, often six, rarelyseven, and as many as eight have been recorded. These are mainlyovate to elliptical-ovate and have a slight gloss. The color is verypale bluish or greenish white, often nearly white. W. A. Smith tellsme that he has a set in his collection in which the eggs "are a pure,pearly white, without a trace of blue color ; they were collected fromthe nest of a partially albino starling." I have no record of anyspotted eggs. Bernard W. Tucker sends me the measurements of100 British eggs; they average 30.2 by 21.2 millimeters; the eggsshowing the four extremes measure 34.9 by 21.0, 34.1 by 22.4, and27.2 by 19.8 millimeters.The measurements of 50 American eggs are somewhat different ; theyaverage 29.2 by 21.1 millimeters ; the eggs showing the four extremesmeasure 31.4 by 21.4, 30.5 by 22.5, 26.9 by 20.0, and 27.9 by 19.8 milli-meters.Young.?The period of incubation is variously reported as 11 to14 days, but most authorities agree on the latter figure. The dutiesof incubation are shared by both sexes. The young are said to remainin the nest until they are fully fledged, or for a period of 2 to 3 weeks ; they can then fly well ; this protracted nest life in a closed nest tendsto reduce the mortality in the young. The total nesting cycle, nest-building, incubation, and nest life of the young is therefore about40 days.Kalmbach and Gabrielson (1921) write:Nestling starlings are fed by the parents largely on insects. For the firstweek both parents take part in the feeding operations, but in several neststhat were under observation the female was left to do all the work during thelatter part of the nestling period. "When 3 or 4 days old the young are verynoisy and give the feeding call in lusty chorus in response to almost any sound. 192 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMLater, they learn to distinguish the approach of the parents and respond onlyto their notes or appearance. Other noises or vibrations cause them to crouchsilently in the bottom of the nest, and no amount of coaxing will persuade oneof them to stir or make a soimd.Two broods are usually raised each year and sometimes there are three.The first of these leaves the nest about June 1 and the second late In July. Fledg-lings which may have been from either a belated second or third brood just fromthe nest were collected as late as September 12, at Bay Shore, N. Y.As soon as the first brood leaves the nest small flocks of young starlingscan he found feeding on grasslands or roosting at night in trees or buildings.These flocks grow rapidly in size and by mid-July often number into the thousands.During the day no adult birds are found in these early flocks and very few appearuntil after the completion of the molt In September ; both old and young, however,occupy the same nightly roost.Lony B. Strabala (1926), of Leetonia, Ohio, spent a long day watch-ing a pair of starlings feeding their young, on which he reports: "During the whole day that I watched, * * * j g^^ them feed theyoung 121 times." During the day he was away from the nest atmeal times for 2 hours and 50 minutes, but he saw them make theirfirst feeding at 4 :32 a. m., and their last trip at 7 :21 p. m. "They werefeeding their young fifteen hours and twenty-three minutes, theymade an average while I watched them of around 10 trips an hour soin the whole fifteen hours and twenty-three minutes they would makeno less than about 155 trips in one day of which the male made 74and the female 47 of the 121 trips I saw them make. The male carriedout excrement 20 times while I was watching and the female 23 times.The shortest interval between feeding was one minute and the longestwas 45 minutes. During the whole day they were not seen to feedthe young anything but insects and worms as far as I could tell."Dr. Witmer Stone (1937), writing of conditions at Cape May, N. J.,says : "When the young first leave the nest they follow a parent, pre-sumably the female, on the lawns of the town, running rapidly afterher and jostling one another in their greed to get the food she is findingfor them. This often continues until the birds are full-grown andseem perfectly able to shift for themselves. By July 1 we may seeflocks of young numbering one himdred or more, all in their plain graydress, arising from the fields of cut hay where they find an abundanceof insect food ; other flocks all composed of young were seen on July 2and 7 in different years about the hogpens which are to be found on theedges of marsh and woodland, where the garbage from the town ishauled."William Lott (1939), of London, Ontario, found a flicker feedinga brood of three feathered young starlings; the nest was a typicalstarling's nest ; he saw the flicker make several trips with food beforehe caught her on the nest; he raised the question whether the starlingmay have built its nest in the flicker's nesting hole and the latterhatched the eggs. STARLING 193R. A. Johnson (1935) conducted a study on a lot of starling nestsin an old barn at Oneonta, N. Y., for the purpose of determining thesuccess of the birds in raising their broods. He says : Notes were recorded on the success of seventeen nests. Six of these wereearly or May nests of 1933 and 1934. Eleven were second or June nests of 1933.All of these second nests came at the time of the beginning of the drought of1933.The seventeen nests produced seventy-nine eggs, hatched fifty young, forty ofwhich were reared. It is very interesting liowever to compare the success ofthe early or May nests with the late or June nests. The sis early nests producedtwenty-nine eggs, hatched twenty-six young and fledged twenty-six young. Theeleven late or June nests produced fifty eggs, hatched twenty-four young, ofwhich only fourteen were Hedged. During the incubation period for theJune nests the severe drought of that summer set in, which was, in my opinion,the main factor in causing the low percentage of success for the second nests.Plumages.?The small nestling starling is fairly well covered withlong, drab-gray, or grayish-white natal down, longest and darkest onthe head, but present on practically all the j)rincipal feather tracts.The Juvenal plumage is fully acquired before the young leave thenest, including considerable development of the flight feathers. Inthis plumage, the young bird is very plainly colored and entirely un-like the adult. The upperparts, including the wings and tail, arebrownish "mouse gray" ; the underparts are only a slightly paler shadeof the same color, fading out to whitish on the throat and chin ; theabdomen is streaked with grayish white ; and the wings and tail havenarrow buffy edgings.The starling is one of the few American birds that have a completepost]uvenal molt, which takes place between July and September,depending upon the date of hatching ; for birds of the first brood inNew England, this occurs mainly in August. James Lee Peters ( 1928)has published a detailed account of this molt, to which the reader isreferred. He says that molt of the body plumage occurs simultane-ously with that of the primaries and tail, beginning with the inner, orfirst, primary and ending with the outer, or tenth. He has seen thismolt jDractically completed by August 19, and in another case, perhapsa bird from a second brood, not until the end of September. The moltbegins soon after the wings and tail are fully grown, the first of theglossy green, white-tipped feathers appearing on the flanks, and thelast of the juvenal plumage disappearing on the head.Dr. Dwight (1900) describes the first winter plumage very well, asfollows: "Everywhere bottle or purplish green with metallic reflec-tions, the feathers above with cinnamon terminal spots, smallest on thehead, the feathers below with white spots. Wings and tail greenishblack edged with cinnamon, the wing quills having a pale terminal spotbordered with black."Young and old birds are now much alike, but the cinnamon spots 194 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMand edgings are more deeply colored in young birds, the chin iswhitish, the forehead buflfy, the spots are larger and rounder, especiallybelow, and the body feathers are more rounded, less pointed.There is no spring molt, but wear and fading have practicallyeliminated most of the spotting, especially on the underparts andhead. The bill, which was mostly dusky in the fall, becomes lemon-yellow before spring. Adults and year-old birds have a completepostnuptial molt, beginning sometimes in June but usually from Julythrough September. This produces the heavily spotted fall plumage,which is changed by wear, as in the young bird. Females are like themales, but the colors are usually duller, the body feathers are shorter,less pointed, and the spotting is heavier. Females usually have lessyellow, or less brilliant yellow, in the bill at any season than the males.Dr. Lawrence E. Hicks (1934) says that, "as the breeding seasonapproaches," the basal half of the lower mandible "becomes conspicu-ously bluish white to bluish gray in the males and pinkish white topinkish gray in the females."Food.?The most comprehensive report on the food of the starlingis contained in Kalmbach and Gabrielson's (1921) excellent paperon the economic value of this bird, from which most of what followsis taken. The examination of 2,301 stomachs showed that 57 percentof the food for the year was animal matter and 43 percent vegetable.The highest percentage of animal food was taken in April, 91.22 per-cent, and in May, 94.95 percent; it dropped to the lowest point inFebruary, 28.17 percent; but the average for the four months, Decem-ber to March, was 31.5 percent, a remarkable showing. Vegetablefood reached its maximum in July, 52.67 percent, nearly all mulberriesand cherries.Insects formed 41.55 percent of the total food, "a greater proportionthan is shown in the food of most of our native birds of similar habits."It reached its maximum in October, 57.8 percent. About half of theinsect food, 19.59 percent, consisted of various beetles, largely weevils.Most prominent among these was the clover leaf weevil {Eyperapunctata) , which does considerable damage to the clover crop ; 1,125starlings had fed on this pest, both winter and summer. A numberof other species of weevils were found, including the strawberry crowngirdler and the bluegrass billbug. "It is evident that the starling is avery effective enemy of such weevils as feed on grass or forage crops.This is particularly noticeable in regard to the clover pests, and it issafe to assert that the starling is the most effective bird enemy of theclover loeevil in AmencaPThe Carabidae, or ground beetles, amounted to 5.71 percent for theyear but rose to 13.02 percent in August, only a small part of whichwere of the beneficial, predatory species. A long list of other beetlesfollow in the report, among which are May beetles, the adults of the STARLING 195 notorious wliite grubs, dung beetles, the injurious Japanese beetle,rove beetles, leaf beetles, click beetles, darkling beetles, and the famouspotato beetle.Orthoptera, among which the shorthorned grasshoppers (Acrididae) and crick-ets (Gryllidae) predominated, constituted 12.41 per cent of the annual food of theadult starlings examined. * * * A conservative estimate of the annual lossin this country due to the grasshoppers is $50,000,000. This would be muchgreater were it not for the controlling influence of insectivorous birds. Some ofthese, among which may be placed the starling, secure practically all of theirinsect food during September and October from this source, stopping thereby thedepredations of millions of these insects and preventing the future developmentof countless millions more. * * * When hay fields are being cut and rakedin the latter part of August and early September, flocks of juvenile starlingssecure practically all their sustenance from these insects, supplemented with wildblack cherries (PrwnMS seroium) and elderberries (/S'am&MCMS canadensis). * * *Of the 2,301 stomachs of adult starlings examined, 538 contained the remainsof caterpillars ; 20 contained pupae ; and 30, adult Lepidoptera.In one bird's stomach "were the remains of no less than 40 cater-pillars, which formed 98 percent of the food." The starling has dis-tinguished itself as a most effective enemy of that notorious pest, thecutworm ; it has been observed doing exceptionally good work on thearmy worm ; and has been seen feeding on the larvae of the cabbagebutterfly. Only a few tent caterpillars and other hairy species havebeen found in its food. "One reason for not finding more spiny orhairy caterpillars may be explained by an incident observed at Nor-walk. Conn., where a starling was seen to eat a tent caterpillar muchafter the fashion of the Baltimore oriole, by forcing out the soft partsand leaving the hairy skin hanging on the limb."Among other insects eaten they mention Hymenoptera, mostly antsand a few ichneumons and bees, Hemiptera, and Diptera in smallquantities. And the remainder of the animal food consists of milli-peds, spiders, land snails, earthworms, sowbugs, and remains of animalgarbage; fragments of a crab, a few beach fleas, and the bones of asalamander were also found.The vegetable food consists of cultivated and wild fruits andberries, grain, and seeds. The most serious complaint against thestarling is its fondness for cherries. "In 1915, on a farm near Closter,N. J., trees that should have produced $50 to $60 worth of cherriesyielded only $10 worth, a loss due largely to starlings. At Bristol,Conn., a flock of about 300 starlings entirely stripped a single tree of its1916 crop in less than 15 minutes. At Kowayton, Conn., six cherrytrees were entirely stripped of their fruit by robins and starlings in1916." But in the 2,301 stomachs examined, only 169 contained culti-vated cherries, forming 2.66 percent of the annual food, or a maximumof 17.01 percent in June. "During the months of June and July, therobins obtained 24.58 per cent and 22.71 percent, respectively, of theirfood from cultivated cherries, quantities half again as great as those 196 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMconsumed by starlings in the same months." Probably very littledamage is done to strawberries, in spite of some complaints, or toother small fruits. Some apples, pears, and peaches have beenpecked into and ruined on the trees, but the extent of the injury seemsto be over-rated. Only 45 of the 2,301 stomachs examined containedpulp or skin of apples, and in 23 of these cases the birds were takenin winter and spring. No grapes were found in the stomachs exam-ined, though the starling is said to eat grapes, especially in the vine-yards of France.Together with large flocks of grackles, red-winged blackbirds, andcowbirds, starlings visit the fields of sweet corn, when it is ready forthe market, and do considerable damage by tearing open the ears andeating enough of the juicy kernels to render the ears unsalable; butmost of this damage is evidently done by the other black birds, for only52 out of the 2,301 starlings had eaten any corn ; moreover, most farm-ers do not distinguish starlings from immature redwings, so that thestarlings have often been unjustly blamed. The starling has alsobeen accused of pulling up sprouting corn and other grains, peckingat tomatoes, and pulling up and injuring various other truck gardenplants, but the aggregate damage is a^Dparently not great, except in afew small city gardens.Wild fruits constitute 23.86 percent of the starling's yearly food,reaching a maximum of 40.88 percent in August. Early in the sum-mer they eat mulberries and Juneberries {AmeJanchier) ^ then black-berries and wild cherries; later on they take the berries of the sourgum and Virginia-creeper, and elderberries, and in fall and winterthey eat bayberries and the seeds of the sumacs and other species ofRhus. "Wild fruit enters into the winter food in the following per-centages: November, 41.80; December, 36.44; January, 19.98; Febru-ary, 32.90." Other vegetable food consists of poison-ivy seeds, gar-bage refuse, seeds of ragweed, foxtail grass, etc.The stomachs of 309 nestlings of all ages were examined, fromwhich it appeared that the food items were mainly the same as forthe adults, though there was a larger proportion of soft-bodied insects,95.06 percent against 82.36 percent for the adults at the same season."To very young birds caterpillars are especially attractive. Only 3of the 79 nestlings estimated to be less than 6 days old had failed toeat these larvae." Cutworms and the white grubs of the May beetlewere ])rominent and spiders were most conspicuous, being present in182 of the 325 nestling stomachs examined. Cherries were eaten by30 of the nestlings, mostly during the last few days of their nest life.That young starlings are heavily fed is shown by the followingobservation : In nine days a total of 390 feedings were recorded, in 14 periods varying inlengtti from 30 minutes to 4 hours and 41 minutes. One hundred and four of the STARLING 197feedings were by the male and 286 by the female. An average of one feeding eveiy6.1 minutes was maintained for the whole period of observation, 31 hours and 10minutes. The highest rate was recorded on the morning of May 18, which wasprobably the seventh day of the nestlings' life. A feeding every 3.2 minutes wasmaintained for 4 hours and 41 minutes. The lowest rate, once every 11.7 minutes,occurred on May 25, the day before the young left the nest. * * * When it isborne in mind that the parent birds would often bring in three or four cutworms,earthworms, or grasshoppers, or an equal bulk of miscellaneous insect food, at asingle trip, one may gain an idea of the quantity of food required to develop abrood of young starlings.In conclusion, they say as to the economic value of the starling:"Most of the starling's food habits have been demonstrated to beeither beneficial to man or of a neutral character. Furthermore, ithas been found that the time the bird spends in destroying crops orin molesting other birds is extremely short compared with the endlesshours it spends searching for insects or feeding on wild fruits. * * *The individual farmer will be well rewarded by allowing a reasonablenumber of starlings to conduct their nesting operations on the farm.Later in the season a little vigilance will prevent these easily fright-ened birds from exacting an imfair toll for services rendered."It is interesting that their investigation of the economic value ofthe starling abroad was favorable. After presenting some of theevidence, they say: "Summing up, it may be said that in Europethe verdict on the starling is distinctly favorable ; of 35 works dealingin a general way with the economic status of tbe bird, only 7 reportadversely. It is noteworthy, moreover, that the findings of all thethorough and more scientific investigators have been in favor of thespecies, although some authors admit that at present starlings are toonumerous in some localities."Starlings are generally seen feeding on the ground, where most oftheir insect food is undoubtedly obtained, or resorting to trees andbushes for their fruit and berries, but Kalmbach and Gabrielson(1921) mention two other rather unusual methods of feeding, asfollows : Connected with the capture of Hymenoptera is one of the oddest activitiesof the starling. While primarily terrestrial feeders, soon after the first ofAugust young starlings were seen catching insects on the wing, much afterthe fashion of true flycatchers. From a perch on a dead upper limb the birdswould spy insects several yards away, fly out, and dexterously capture them.Later, after the first of October, starlings changed their tactics, adoptingmethods similar to those of swallows or martins in securing flying insects.The best illustration of those activities was furnished in northern New Jerseyon a calm day above a warm, sunlit meadow. Here a dozen or more starlingswere sailing about and capturing insects at a height of about a hundred feetfrom the ground. Under such conditions one not acquainted with the starlingwould certainly have mistaken the birds for martins, for, combined with aform which is quite similar, was the flight evolution, which imitated tbemartins perfectly. 198 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMMany ants in the winged stage are captured by starlings in their aerial evolu-tions, some are picked up on the ground, and others are secured from the branchesof trees. On September 5 a number of juvenile starlings were noted diligentlysearching for and picking up food from the upper branches of a spruce. Tosome extent their actions imitated those of chickadees or warblers, thoughthey were not so sprightly. One of these birds was collected and its stomachfound to be filled with ants.All the above account of the food and feeding habits of the starlinghas been condensed from the extensive report by Kalmbach and Ga-brielson (1921), which leaves little more to be said. Doubtless manyother kinds of insects, small animals, fruits, and berries are eatenthat are not mentioned above, and the list will be added to as thebird extends its range into other types of country, and as more ob-servers are watching them. For instance, E. A. Mcllhenny (1936)saw them feeding, on Avery Island, La., upon the berries of the cas-sena, hackberry, camphor, and chinaberry trees and upon other berry-bearing trees, shrubs, and vines, flocking in countless numbers withrobins and cedar waxwings.Mr. Forbush (1927) says: "It takes practically all grains, includingcorn, and digs up the seed in planted or sowed fields. It takes theyoung sprouts of such garden vegetables as beans, peas, lettuce, onions,radishes, beets, carrots, muskmelons, squashes and tomatoes and youngflowering plants as well. * * * jj.^ pastures it follows the cattle orsheep, catching the insects that the animals stir up, or actually alight-ing on their backs in search of ticks or other insects." See, also, apaper by Clarence Cottam (1944).Short-grass fields, pastures, or lawns are favorite feeding places,where the ground is easily reached ; they do not like to feed in longgrass. On my lawn in the center of the city, I can see from a fewto many starlings almost any day when the ground is bare, winter orsummer, zigzagging over the lawn and probing into the ground. Ido not want to shoot them to learn what they are eating, for Iknow that they are feeding on enemies of the grass, perhaps the larvaeor pupae of the Japanese beetle. My flowering crabapple trees fruitprofusely nearly every year; and before the tiny apples are ripe thestarlings and some robins flock to them day after day, until the treesare entirely stripped of their fruit ; and for a long time after that, theymay be seen on the ground under them, picking up the fallen apples.For a further study of the economic status of the starling, thereader is referred to Mr. Forbush's (1927) extensive remarks on thesubject and to E. K. Kalmbach's (1922) discussion of the food habitsof the species in England as compared w^ith those of this bird inAmerica, which illustrates what can happen to change its status whenit becomes too numerous. Wliereas in moderate numbers it may be avery useful bird, it may increase to such an extent as to become verydetrimental. STARLING 199Behavior.?Starlings are shy, timid, nervous birds. It is almostimpossible to approach them within gunshot range in open country.If, when they are feeding in a cherry tree, a gun is fired at them, thesurvivors will fly away and not soon return, more scared than hurt asa rule. It is impossible to exterminate them, or even materially re-duce their numbers. Their caution is their salvation. I often watchthem feeding on my front lawn, which extends unprotected to thesidewalk; usually a person walking by, or certainly one stopping tolook at them, will send them flying up into the trees; even a passingvehicle may produce the same effect.On the ground they walk with short, mincing steps and a waddlinggait on their rather short legs, running or hopping occasionally ifin a hurry; they do not seem to forage systematically but wanderover the lawn in a haphazard manner. Milton P. Skinner (1928)says that when a flock is moving forward, "Starlings have the peculiarhabit of hopping up in the air from eight to twelve inches and forwardat the same time a foot or more. These hops are rather frequent, fourper cent or more of the flock being in the air at the same time." Itis interesting to watch a large flock feeding on some wide expanse ofgrassland; the whole flock seems to progress by "rolling" over theground, all moving in the same direction, those in the rear ranks rising,flying over the crowd and settling in front of the slowly movingranks, thus securing the first chance to feed on fresh ground.Starlings show to best advantage in flight; their ordinary shortflights sometimes seem slow and feeble, but, when well under wayand going somewhere, the flight is strong, swift and direct, with rapidstrokes of the short, pointed wings, interspersed with periods ofsailing on stiff pinions. Miss Cooke (1928) says that "they are swiftflyers, at times traveling as fast as 49 miles an hour." Everett W.Jameson (1942) timed the speed of a starling that flew parallel tohis automobile for over half a mile in still air at 55 miles an hour.The spectacular flight maneuvers of a large flock of starlings aremost remarkable, and they always attract the enthusiastic admirationof the beholder, as they wheel, turn, and swing into fantastic forma-tions with marvelous precision, with no apparent leader but all re-sponding as if one individual, rivaling in their coordinated movementsthe flocking instincts of some of the smaller shorebirds that we liketo watch whirling in clouds over the marshes. Many writers havereferred to this interesting flight, but the following words of Dr.Chapman (1925) are fully as good as any : A thousand, five thousand, ten thousand birds mount to the sky, animated byone impulse?the floclc becomes a ball symmetrical as a globe in outline ; sud-denly, w^th no suggestion of disorder, it lengthens to an ellipse which a momentlater, narrowing in the middle and concentrating at the ends, simulates a dumb-bell in form. Again a change, and a dusky snake undulates across the heavensonly to telescope on itself and become a ball again. 200 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMBut little less spectacular are the great roosts resorted to by theyoung after the breeding season and b}^ young and old starlings in falland winter, often with hordes of grackles, red-winged blackbirds, cow-birds, and robins. Early in the season, late in summer and early infall, enormous numbers roost in trees, and in cattail swamps or othermarshes. But, when winter comes, the flocks of starlings seek betterprotection in or on various buildings in the towns and cities, thoughmany continue to roost in shade trees along the streets as long as theleaves remain on the trees. J^Iany congregate in barns or in churchtowers in the villages, while others resort to public buildings in thelarge cities, roosting in the ventilators on the roofs, on ledges underthe eaves, on cornices, on the tops of windows or on the capitals ofpillars, wherever they can crowd into some slieltered spot. Manystarling roosts have been described in print, but only a few can bementioned here.Hicks and Dambach (1935) made some observations on a largeroost in an oak thicket on the southward-facing slope of a ravine nearZanesville, Ohio, through the fall and until cold weather drove themout in January : The aerial manoeuvres performed before the final roost movements were littleshort of miraculous. To see more than 30,000 birds flying in unison and inclose formation is a truly worth-while sight. Tlie black, moving cloud ofstarlings took on fantastic shapes as the birds swerved to one side, swoopeddown, or performed other movements, each bird following the path taken by itspredecessor. The manoeuvres were performed so regularly that we gave themnames and recognized the same movements repeatedly night after night. Attimes the moving mass of birds resembled a huge bullet hurtling through space : at other times it consisted of a continuous revolving circle, or resembled a wavingflag, a darting fish, a conventional comet, a most spectacular dark sinister-looking waterspout. These manoeuvres took from 45 to GO minutes each night.During this time the starlings actually were on the wing for about 30 minutes,and maintained an average speed of a little more than 30 miles an hour. * * *And this exercise was in addition to perhaps 20 to 90 miles of flying by eachbird during the day. * * *Activity in this roost was apparent at the first sign of daybreak. The birds,in a vociferous garrulous mass, swarmed like an excited cluster of honey-beesthrough the dense tangle of the thicket until twelve minutes before sunrise.Then, within eight minutes, the whole group took wing, rising in several well-defined waves. Next a few aerial manoeuvres were performed over the roost inmass formation, the groups gradually breaking into a number of small units,each unit taking a definite route, which was found to be the same each day.Loefer and Patten (1941) describe an interesting roost in a rockygorge near Lexington, Ky., as follows : At this scenic spot between Fayette and Madison Counties the river has cutthrough solid rock marking a very narrow valley hedged in by rocky walls andslopes which mark the channel of long ago. * * * Fairly large and closelyplanted deciduous trees line the bank, and smaller trees, including some cedars,cover the more gentle slope which extends for about a hundred and twenty-five yards from the river bank to the highway. * * * STARLING 201Intensive observatioBS were made at the roost this year (1941) during themonth of March. On fair evenings the birds began to appear in the trees alongthe top of tlie gorge at about six o'clocli. They seemed to converge in smallflocks from all directions during the next half-hour. The smaller flocks aggre-gated into larger ones, but did not descend to the roost until about dusk, probablybecause the inhabitants of the valley in attempting to break up the roost, shotinto the flocks frequently. The skillful maneuvering by the close formationsof these large flocks as they veered sharply first in one direction and then inanother while flying around before settling was an Impressive sight not easilyforgotten by any observer. When the birds settled, the trees appeared, froma few hundred yards distant, as though in full leaf. The small grove in whichthe birds settled did not exceed four acres, but the birds were so numerous thatmany limbs of tlie trees were broken and dung in places was four inches deep.It was impossible to estimate accurately the total number of blackbirds. Localornithologists set the figure at anywhere from a half to around several mil-lion. * * * Of the three species seen at the roost, Starlings {Stnmiis vul-garis vulgaris) were by far preponderant, outnumbering Bronzed Grackles(Quiscalus quiscula aencus) at least twenty-five to one. A number of Cowbirds{Molothrus ater ater) were there during early March, but few were seen late inthe month.Kalmbach and Gabrielson (1921) say of a New Jersey roost : At a roost in a marsh along the Hackensack River an opportunity was affordedto watch the starlings congregating. As early as 3 o'clock in the afternoonflocks of a dozen or two could be found gathering in the hayflelds in the vicinity,or perching on dead chestnuts, singing and preening their feathers. Most ofthese were juveniles with the molt extending up as far as the neck. They wouldfly alternately to the hay stubble, which was heavily infested with grasshoppers,and then to the tree tops when flushed. By 4 o'clock a flock of a hundred ormore had gathered. * * * With the approach of evening the birds wouldrise and perform numerous flight evolutions, in which they displayed wonderfulcoordination of action. This was best observed when they would fly in thedirection of the sun, and the flashes of light coming from their glossy backsappeared as coming from a single mirror instead of from several hundred bodiesacting independently but in perfect unison. * * * As dusk approaelied,the birds had worked their way toward the Hackensack River, where theygatliered in compact flocks, singing in the tree tops along the bank. A fewwere seen feeding with a large number of red-wings on the tidal flats alongthe edge of the marsh. When darkness finally came the starlings in the treetops sailed out over the marsh and joined their relatives, perching on the cat-tail flags for the night.Mr. Kalmbach (1932) tells lis something about the city roostingsof starlings in Washington, D. C, where he and others did some ex-tensive banding in winter roosts. Fully a thousand starlings roostedin ventilators on top of the Post Office Department Building onPennsylvania Avenue, in December 1927, but they were not easilycaught there ; they abandoned the roost and promptly changed to thetower of the First Presbyterian Church, where as many as 2,000 re-paired nightly ; 1,241 starlings were banded there on March 2, 1928.In the winter of 1928-29, starlings were banded in the tower of theMetropolitan Memorial M. E. Church.843290?50 14 202 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMThe Starlings in the first of the towers visited, which is an old one, occupiedvarious ledges and nooks in the wall as the cross braces. At a certain levelthere was a series of box-like cavities in the wall construction, each about twofeet wide, three feet deep, and six inches high. These were filled with Starlingsfor their entire depth with scarcely room for another, and, despite an outdoortemperature of well below freezing, I am confident a thermometer placed amongthe birds would have registered close to that of their own bodies. We ourselveswere able to keep perfectly comfortable, even though working bare-handed oncold nights, by frequently delving arms' length into one of these cavities todrag forth a double handful of Starlings. This habit of dense crowding is quitedifferent from that displayed by Starlings when roosting in trees or on theexterior of some buildings where there is ample room. In such locations thebirds appear to resent close association and aim to keep between each othera space equal to the width of a bird.The starlings also roosted in such numbers on the outside of the oldLand Office Building and the Patent Office that men had to be hiredto drive them away. "On the 9th of February 1931, a crew of eightmen, four to each building, started a crusade against the roosting birds.Cat-o-nine tail whips of short poles with several strands of flexiblewire attached were used to lash the ledges beneath the eaves. The menoperated from the roof of the building."This was carried on for four nights in succession, and "since then,these two buildings, which together harbored probably in excess of6,000 birds, have been free of Starlings."In a nearby community in Virginia, "a mixed flock of EnglishSparrows and Starlings roosted, to the great distress of the owner ofthe property, in ivy covering the brick walls of a large and statelydwelling. A plea for some relief led to an experiment in the useof calcium cyanide dust as a fumigant."After several repetitions of this treatment the birds left and neverreturned. Various other methods have been employed, more or lesssuccessfully, to prevent or break up starling roosts ; where the birdsroost on outside ledges of buildings, these could be screened or slantingboards be placed on them, or the birds could be driven away by shoot-ing at them with slingshots or air rifles; shooting with shotguns ismost efl^ective, but in many places it is objectionable or illegal ; shoot-ing Roman candles into roosting trees is sometimes effective and notobjectionable; the use of the city fire hose will drive them out; butall these devices must be followed up persistently to be successful. "VVliere starlings roost inside buildings, they can be killed with poison-ous gases, but these are dangerous and should be used only by anexpert; and they can be eradicated by frequently disturbing theirslumbers. For a full discussion of this subject, the reader is referredto a mimeographed circular by Mr. Kalmbach ( 1937) . In its relation to other species the starling is not above criticism.It has been severely condemned on two counts, competition with vari-ous native species for nesting sites and consumption of too much of the STARLING 203 available food supply on which our birds largely depend in fall andwinter. Whether the harm done on either of these counts has beenoverestimated is an open question, when we consider the economicvalue of the starling as one of the greatest destroyers of noxious in-sects, as shown above. The study of its food habits indicate that thestarling is of more economic value than the robin, English sparrow,or flicker, with which it competes for food or nesting sites, and it has abetter food record than such beneficial birds as the catbird, red-w^ingedblackbird, or grackle ; but the economic value of the bluebird and thepurple martin might be considered greater than that of the starling.In its search for nesting sites, the starling comes into competitionwith domestic pigeons, screech owls, sparrow hawks, flickers and otherlarge woodpeckers, crested flycatchers, purple martins, bluebirds, treeswallows and house wrens, or other hole-nesting birds that buildtheir nests in open cavities in trees, or in bird boxes that have entranceholes large enough for them to enter. But the starlings cannot occupya box, if the entrance hole is an inch and a half in diameter or less,where the smaller birds would be safe.Starlings either preempt the nesting site before the others havehad a chance to occupy it, in which case their ownership is seldomdisputed, or they actually evict the rightful owners after their nestis built, or even contains eggs or young. Probably the flicker is themost frequent victim of these aggressive tactics, about which muchhas been published. The following case, reported by Kahnbach andGabrielson (1921) is typical:In contests with the flicker the starling frequently makes up in numbers whatdisadvantage it may have in size. Typical of such combats was one observedon May 9, at Hartford, Conn., where a group of starlings and a flicker werein controversy over a newly excavated nest. The number of starlings varied,but as many as 6 were noted at one time. Attention was first attracted to thedispute by a number of starlings in close proximity to the hole and by thesounds of a tussle within. Presently a flicker came out dragging a starling afterhim. Tlie starling continued the battle outside long enough to allow one of itscomrades to slip into the nest. Of course the flicker had to repeat the entireperformance. He did this for about half an hour, when he gave up, leavingthe starlings in possession of the nest.They tell of another case in which the flickers were finally success-ful in raising a brood which was nearly ready to leave the nest."Whenever this flicker relaxed its vigilance for a moment one of thestarlings would immediately make a dart for the nest opening. Ascuffle would ensue in which both flicker and starling would cometumbling to the ground and a few feathers would fly." This conflictcontinued for several days, until the young flickers left the nest un-harmed. Even then the starlings did not use the nest.On several occasions starlings have been known to remove theflicker's eggs, or pull out the young birds and throw them to the 204 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMground, in order to occupy the nest hole. That they sometimes killthe adult flicker in shown by the following observation by Lewis O.Shelley (1935) :The first year the Flickers were driven away before the eggs were laid. Thenext spring, a pair of Starlings desirous of the new nest-hole for their secondbrood, killed the young Flickers and they, or another pair, threw out the deadbirds, and nested. The third year, hearing a great to-do of Starling squawksand whistles, I was in time to see a Starling pursue the female Flicker andstrike her at the base of the skull when she alighted at the nest-hole. Examina-tion proved that the victim was killed instantly, the Starling's bill having piercedthe skull and brain. Since then several nesting Flickers, presumably killed intills same manner, have been brought to me. In 1933 I saw a female that wasparalyzed from an attack ; she tried several times to climb up the tree andfinally fell back and died.Kalmbach and Gabrielson (1921) mention a number of occasionson which starlings have attacked other birds, and some on which tlieyseemed to get along amicably with their neighbors. "One martinhouse at Norwalk, Conn., was occupied by a pair of sparrow hawkson one side and three pairs of starlings on the other. At Hadlyme,Conn., a colony of fully 50 pairs of martins conducted unmolestedtheir nesting operations under the close scrutiny of starlings thatnested nearby." One of two martin houses at Adelphia, N. J. ? was occupied by starlings, and when a pair of martins appeared and attemptedto take up the other abode a fight occurred. A starling was observed goinginto the martin house, and after pulling out one of the inmates dragged outthe nest material.The martin was subsequently attacked whenever it approached and it finallyleft the premises. * * xhe single record of starlings attacking a red-headed woodp(?cker comes from Baltimore, jMd., where a combat was observedover a nest cavity in a telephone pole. * * * At Ambler, Pa., two nestlingrobins were killed by starlings, the victims being dispatched by powerful peckson the head.At East Norwalk, Conn., a starling was seen to peck and break all the eggsin a robin's uost. * * * Single attacks on a Baltimore oriole's nest and theyoung of a chipping sparrow were reported. * * * At Middletown, R. I.,it was found necessary to wage constant warfare on the starlings to keep themfrom nesting in one pigeon loft, where they appropriated for their own do-mestic affairs the boxes put up for the pigeons. They carried in so muchmaterial that they filled the boxes and on one or two occasions dragged it inso rapidly as actually to barricade the setting pigeons, which were entirelyunresisting.At Norwalk, Conn., a pair of bluebirds started to build nests inthree different boxes, one after another, but the starlings removed allthe nesting material, and it was not until the bluebirds found a boxprovided with a 1%-inch opening that they were able to lay a setof eggs. But, in some cases, bluebirds and starlings were noted nest-ing peaceably in close proximity. STARLING 205In summing up the evidence on this phase of behavior, they say:While instances such as those cited are numerous and often have resultedfatally to the birds attacked it must be borne in mind that this information isthe compilation of more than six months' constant investigation, during whichtime no opportunity to secure data on this point vras overlooked. Bluebirds arecommon and generally distributed in the sections thickly settled with starlings,and although observers have noted their disappearance in small areas confined toa dooryard or two, it is the opinion of those who are qualified to judge the gen-eral abundance of these birds that in Connecticut and northeastern New Jersey,bluebirds have either held their own or increased in numbers in the last fewyears. * * * The flicker also will be driven from the vicinity of houses,but it, too, will always find a refuge in wilder situations to which the starlingseldom goes. In those parts of Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey wherethe starling has been a common bird and in competition with the flicker for atleast 15 years the latter still maintains as conspicuous a place in the bird worldas it does in other parts of these States where the starling is not yet common.Mr. Forbush (1927) says that starlings have "been known to kill3''oung game birds. Mr. Perry S. Knowlton, of Essex, Massachusetts,says that he saw a small flock of Starlings attack five young pheasants 'about as large as robins' and kill two of them. The Starlings struckthe young birds with their bills, piercing the skull about at the earwhere the blood oozed out."Dr. Dayton Stoner (1932) writes: "Mr. William Parker, who livesabout one and one-half miles southvv-est of Lakeport [N. Y.], saysthat in many places the starling has driven away the English sparrowsfrom the vicinity of barns and other buildings. With the dispersalof the sparrows the barn and cliff swallows, more desirable birds thaneither the sparrows or the starlings, have come in. Swallows will notbuild where sparrows congregate in any numbers, but starlings andswallow^s seem to get on without much conflict. * * * The starlingand the purple martin will sometimes nest side by side withouthostilities."Leo A. Luttringer, Jr. (1927), relates the following tragedy whichhe saw near Harrisburg, Pa.; "Several Starlings besieged a motherRobin on the nest and one ran its bill through the eye, killing the birdalmost instantl5\ In pulling the bill from the eye of the Robin, theentire eye w^as torn from the socket."Yfhatever the verdict against the starling may be on the score ofcompeting with our native birds for nesting sites, or for attackingthem aggressively, there is no doubt that where starlings are abun-dant there is a just complaint against them for serious competitionwith such birds as robins, catbirds, cedar waxwings, and other berry-eating birds for their late summer, fall, and winter supply of wildfruits and berries. There is little evidence to prove that they regu-larly drive away other birds from such food supplies ; large numbersof starlings and robins feed together on the fruiting trees and shrubs 206 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMin my yard in apparent harmony; except for occasional slightsquabbles between the starlings themselves when feeding on theground, I have never seen any signs of conflict between them, thoughI frequently stop to watch them as I sit at my desk. But, when theyswoop down on the berry-bearing trees and shrubs in big flocks, theysoon strip them of all fruit, including what falls to the ground, andwhen these are gone, the other birds must look elsewhere for theirfood and are thus effectively driven away. Starlings often driveaway small birds from feeding stations, sometimes even the aggres-sive blue jay.Charles A. Urner (1936) made an interesting observation on astarling that was robbing a robin of its hard-earned grubs: "Eachtime a Robin would stop, look or listen and start to dig for a grub theStarling was at its side, would drive it away and procure the locatedfood for its own young. When more than one Robin stopped andstarted to dig at the same moment the Starling was greatly agitated.It would run from one to another and occasionally it did little butcause confusion, and nobody ate."I have seen very little evidence of hostility or signs of quarrelingamong the starlings on my lawn, but Francis H. Allen has sent methe following note : "Starlings are active birds and apparently enjoyexcitement. A group of eight or ten one October afternoon walked,ran, and hopped and flitted about on my lawn, feeding on insects andfallen pears. There were many hostile tilts between different couples.Sometimes an apparently determined advance of one individual uponanother would end in an aerial tilt, sometimes in nothing at all. Therunning appeared to be actual running, not the rapid walk character-istic of the species. Probably one or two combative individuals startedthis little Donnybrook Fair, and the imitative instinct brought theothers in. It broke off suddenly but while it lasted it was a lively andnoisy affair."J. C. Tracy writes to me : "Starlings were observed upon several oc-casions to be acting in a most peculiar manner with English walnuts{Juglans regia) which had fallen to the ground from a large walnuttree. The birds w^ere apparently using the oil from the outside partof the nuts to preen their feathers, although the reason for the actionmay, of course, simply have been coincidental. The starlings wouldinsert their beaks in the soft outer shells of the nuts, and then in thenext move quickly turn their heads and apparently preen their necksand wings. At any rate, it was obvious that the birds were not eatingthe nuts; to all intents and purposes there was something about thegreen outer shells that they liked. Wlienever an intruder starlingwould approach one already at work, he would be greeted by a goodstiff fight ; there were not a great many nuts on the ground and com-petition for the bill-sticking ritual was extremely keen. It is quite STARLING 207possible that some oily substance found in the nutshells was appealingto the birds, and they were using it for some purpose in connectionwith their plumage."Clarence F. Smith has sent me the following note on undesirable be-havior of starlings : "Foresters have made the statement that starlingsin increasing numbers are taking the seeds of longleaf pine, thus raisinga potential problem in reforestation of this important tree. Anotherparticularly important action of the starling relates to injury of live-stock, particularly cattle. The starlings seem to attack the cattle toobtain ox warbles, but they also feed on the flesh and blood of theanimal attacked."Voice.?A group of starlings sitting in a tree top and tuning up forthe spring chorus is rather painful to watch in their attempts at song;and the series of squeaks, chatters, creaking rattles, chirps, and wheezynotes is far from pleasing to the ear ; but these are often interspersedwith long-drawn, cheerful whistles, which are almost humanlike andeasily imitated. And Dr. Chapman (1925) says: "Less often heardis the starling's musical soliloquy which, with fluttering wings, he de-livers, from a more or less exposed position. * * * ;Bu(;, if the notesof adult starlings have merit, the voice of young starlings utteringtheir food call is exceedingly disagreeable, harsh, rasping, and in-sistent ; inspired by no higher emotion than that which arises from anapparently untillable stomach, it rends the air with discord."The starling has acquired considerable fame as a mimic, and muchhas been written about it. Francis H. Allen has sent me the followingnotes on this subject : "An incomplete list of imitations I have heardfrom starlings?always given when the bird is singing, as is the case,I think, with other birds that mimic?includes the boh-iohite, hoO-hob-ivhite, and the scatter call of the bobwhite, the strident single note ofthe killdeer, the kee-up of the flicker, song-notes of phoebe and woodpewee, the distant cawing of a crow, and notes of black-capped chick-adee, bluebird, ruby-crowned kinglet, northern yellow-throat, Englishsparrow, meadowlark (song), oriole, grackle, cowbird, and golfinch."The pewee note of the wood pewee used to be so frequent an imita-tion that some New England ornithologists were led to believe it anative note of the starling, but it was learned that that note was notused by the starling in England. Later, in my neighborhood at least,the starlings used the pewee note less frequently, but specialized on theflight notes of the cowbird. "Gradually these notes?the long ascending note followed by twoshort ones?were altered by hurrying the last two notes, and stand-ardized in that form, so that it was always easy to distinguish the imi-tation from the original genuine cowbird notes. Kecently, however,our starlings have practically discontinued use of the cowbird's notesand have taken up the wood pewee's again, though using them less fre- 208 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMquently than formerly. It seems clear that individual starlings learntheir imitations quite as much from one another as from the originalauthors of the notes and that fashion plays a large part in thechoice. * * * "In feeding young in a hole in an apple tree, in the absence of myselfand two lurking cats, a pair of starlings used a long-drawn, low-pitched, grating note and a rapidly repeated note resembling the callnote of the downy woodpecker. Both notes were once given by a birdwith insects in its bill."Mr. Forbush (1927) "adds to its repertory, notes, songs or calls ofthe Wood Thrush, Robin, Bluebird, Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse,White-breasted Nuthatch, Red-breasted Nuthatch, Catbird, HouseWren, Carolina Wren, Chestnut-sided Warbler, Barn Swallow, Pur-ple Martin, Scarlet Tanager, Field Sparrow, English Sparrow, Cross-bill, Goldfinch, Slate-Colored Junco, Meadowlark, Bronzed Crackle,Baltimore Oriole, Red-winged Blackbird, Cowbird, Crow, Blue Jay,Redheaded Woodpecker, Kingfisher, Wood Pewee, Phoebe, Red-eyedTowhee, Red-shouldered Hawk, Bob-white, Guinea Fowl and Killdeer,and rather imperfect imitations of the calls of both species of Cuckoo.The imitations of some performers are excellent, some of those ofothers are less so, but all are recognizable, even to the barking of adog or the mewing of a cat."Various other observers have listed the following additional birdsas imitated by the starling: Herring gull, sora rail, whippoorwill,nighthawk, chimney swift, solitary sandpiper, greater yellowlegs,hairy and downy woodpeckers, yellow-bellied sapsucker, sparrowhawk, mockingbird, brown thrasher, horned lark, myrtle warbler, sum-mer tanager, purple finch, white-throated sparrow, and cardinal.The above are impressive lists and, if accurate and reliable, wouldseem to place the starling in the front rank of mocking birds, rivalingour famous mockingbird, which it is said to mock. Many of thesenotes are quite easily recognized, but some others not so, and it wouldseem to one whose ears are not sharply attuned to the niceties of birdmusic that some observers have stretched their imaginations. How-ever, the starling in England is said to be able to imitate almost any-thing and in captivity can be taught to whistle tunes and even articu-late words.The power of mimicry is not shared equally by all individual star-lings ; many of them never indulge in the habit ; some do much morethan others. My collaborator, Dr. Winsor M. Tyler (1933), a manwith the keenest and most discriminating ears, listened for nine yearsfor evidence of mimicry and heard only the notes of the cowbird im-itated, perhaps half a dozen times in all. He was skeptical about thebird's ability as a mimic, until one day he heard "in ten minutes, thir-teen notes of ten different birds, given by a flock of Starlings?per- STARLING 209haps by one Starling; an accumulation of audible evidence to con-vince the stubbornest juror."Starlings sing in fall as well as in spring, and sometimes sing intheir winter roosts at night. According to Albert R. Brand (1938),the pitch of the starlings voice is somewhat below the average ofpasserine bird song; the highest note has about 8,225, the lowest about1,100, and the approximate mean about 3,475 vibrations per second;the average for passerine birds is above 4,000 vibrations per second,or around the highest note of the piano keyboard.Field marks.?Among a crowd of other black birds the starlingcan be distinguished by its trim, compact figure, its short tail, and itslong bill. In breeding plumage its glossy, sleek breast and head showgreenish and purplish reflections, and its bill is bright yellow. Infall its body plumage is covered Avith conspicuous whitish and buffydots. The young bird, during its first summer, is colored much likea young cowbird, but its long bill will distinguish it. It can be recog-nized in flight by its sharply pointed wings, its widely spread andshort tail, and by its manner of flight, as described above. After onehas learned to know it, he should be able to recognize it almost as faras it can be seen.Eiiemies.?Cats sometimes catch young starlings and perhaps anadult occasionally. Almost all the swift-flying hawks have been re-corded as preying upon them at times, particularly the duck hawk,Cooper's hawk, and the sharp-shinned. Hicks and Dambach (1935)write : During the flight manoeuvres several Cooper's hawks and one sharp-shinnedhawk were observed repeatedly preying upon the starlings. On one occasion aCooper's hawk flew swiftly to the centre of a giant oak tree, making a kill andscattering, as if by explosion, tlie 2,000 starlings perched on the branches. Twoscreech owls and a barn owl were known to visit the roost, as were also a fox,several opossums, and many weasels. The gregariousness of the starlings madethem easy prey; but, because of the small numbers of predators, such losseswere negligible.That starlings recognize hawks as enemies is shown by their peculiarmethod of mass attack. When a hawk appears near a large flock ofstarlings, these birds gather into a dense formation and pursue thehawk, sometimes enveloping the confused predator in a great rollingcloud of black birds. This generally results in the ignominious retreatof the bewildered hawk before the overwhehning numbers of itspursuers. A somewhat similar performance is described in the follow-ing note from Francis H. Allen : "One October day I saw a red-shoul-dered hav^k sitting in the dead top of a tree when some starlings flewinto the tree. The hawk flew off and a flock of perhaps 25 or 50 soongathered and followed him about in the air, occasionally one or twoswooping at him, but most of the time the flock simply keeping abovehim wherever he went. The flock became augmented for a time, but 210 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL ]\rQSEUMbefore long all but what might have been the original nucleus left him.I watched the performance for a quarter of an hour or so, and thehawk soared high and covered a considerable distance in his circlingflight, but the starlings, in close formation, as is their custom in flocks,stuck to him. Sometimes he would rise above them, but only for amoment, for they would speedily regain and keep the ascendant, thoughthe pursuit carried them much higher than starlings ordinarily fly.Again once in September I saw a large band of starlings pursuing anosprey. In the short time before they abandoned the chase I could notsee that the large bird paid any attention to them, but shortly afterthat the same band was seen sporting with a sparrow hawk, and in thiscase the hawk flew about among them as if in play."In their competition for nesting sites, starlings have sometimesfound that flickers, bluebirds, and even English sparrows were morethan a match for them and have had to retreat, though the reverse isusually the case.Joseph B. Sommer (1937) found that a large number of starlingsexamined in Illinois were infested with internal parasites; 132 birdswere examined, among which 51 "were hosts to one or more parasites,all of which were found in the intestinal tract." External parasitesidentified by Harold S. Peters (1936) included three species of lice,one mite, and one tick.We probably have not been bandings birds long enough to learnthe maximum age to which starlings live. Mr. Thomas's (1934) band-ing records in Ohio "indicate that a very small proportion of Starlingsattain an age of five years, although a fair number reach an age of fourand many attain the age of three years." But since then, birds havebeen reported that were six years old and even eight years old.Dr. Friedmann (1934) published the only record I have seen of acowbird laying an egg in a starling's nest; I doubt if it ever hatched.Fall.?After the young starlings have completed their postjuvenalmolt, the flocks of young birds that have been wandering about bythemselves join with the flocks of adults in preparation for migration.They inherited the migratory instinct from their European ancestors,but in this country they had no established route of migration. Thishad to be learned from other birds. Being naturally gregarious andapparently fond of association with other species of similar habits,they naturally joined with the grackles, red-winged-blackbirds, andcowbirds in their autumnal wanderings and in their great roosts, even-tually following them southward. But, as Dr. Alexander Wetmore(1926) says, "the blackbirds in question habitually fly from 22 to 28miles per hour, while the starling as regularly travels at a rate of 38to 49 miles per hour. The two speeds are so incompatible that itmight be difficult for the species to keep together in prolonged flight."Therefore, it appears as if the grackles and others led the way and STARLING 211the starlings followed. The grackles seem to be the first to appear atthe more southern roosts, to be joined later by increasing numbers ofstarlings, until the latter far outnumber the other black birds. Thisindicates that the greater part of the starlings start on their migrationlater in the season than the others but eventually catch up with themon account of their increased speed.Winter.?Although enormous numbers of starlings follow the black-birds southward, large numbers spend the winter as far north assouthern Canada and New England. For example, P. A. Taverner(1934) reports Jack Miner's experience with it at Kingsville, Ontario : "There the Starlings found winter roost in his planted pine grove,resorting to it in such numbers as, by their dropping, to smother thefoliage, over-fertilize the ground, and finally to kill all the trees in theplantation. This in spite of an active campaign against them in whichtruck loads of the birds were trapped and shipped to the cities to assistin feeding the needy."Severe winter storms and extremely low temperatures often resultin great mortality in the more northern roosts. Odum and Pitelka(1939) report such a disaster at Urbana, 111., in February 1939. Theroost was estimated to contain 25,000 birds, starlings, cowbirds,grackles, and redwings, over 95 percent of which were starlings. Aheavy rainstorm, accompanied by a wind velocity of 48 miles an hour,which blew down a number of trees, was followed by a sudden drop intemperature to below freezing. This resulted in the death of about 4percent of the birds in the roost, among which 570 starlings wereactually counted, and perhaps as many as 1,000 may have perished.Forbush (1927) mentions a report from Carl E. Grant that "afterthe severe weather of January, 1925, he found in an area of less than anacre in a pine grove near Wenham Lake about 500 dead Starlings andinnumerable parts of others, which had been partly eaten. He counted22 dead Starlings in a space less than two feet square where, appar-ently, they had crowded together for warmth."Records from various sources indicate that approximately 70 per-cent of these birds that winter in the north are males. The others gosouth and so overcrowd the southern resorts that the robins, cedarwaxwings, and other berry-eating birds are hard pressed to find sujfi-cient food. DISTRIBUTIONRange.?The starling is a native of Europe, where it breeds fromthe British Isles, northern Norway, and Russia south to southern Rus-sia, northern Italy, and southern France ; during the winter it is foundsomewhat farther south in the Mediterranean region. Since its intro-duction in North America in 1890 it has spread throughout the UnitedStates, southern Canada, and to northern Tamaulipas, Mexico. 212 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMBreeding range (1949).?In North America the starling breedsnorth to southern Alberta (Brooks) ; southern Manitoba (NorwayHouse and Steeprock) ; central Ontario (Port Arthur, Kapuskasing,Lake Nipissing, and Ottawa) ; southern Quebec (Blue Sea Lake, Que-bec, Eiviere-du-Loup, and Natashquan) . East to eastern Quebec (Na-tashquan) ; Newfoundland (Tompkins and St. John's) ; the Atlanticcoast south to northern Florida (Jacksonville). South to northernFlorida (Jacksonville and Pensacola) ; central Mississippi (State Col-lege) ; northwestern Arkansas (Rogers) ; southeastern Kansas (Clear-water) ; and central Mississippi (State College) ; southern Louisiana(New Orleans, 1949) ; etc. West to eastern Kansas (Clearwater andNewton) ; eastern Colorado (Denver) ; eastern and northern NorthDakota (Fairmont, Lower Souris Wildlife Refuge, and Des Lacs Wild-life Refuge) ; and southern Alberta (Brooks).The northernmost records of occurrence are: Alberta (Belvedere,1940) ; Manitoba (Churchill, 1940, and York Factory, 1934) ; Ontario(Fort Albany, 1940, and Moose Factory, 1931).Winter range.?During the winter the starling is found over muchof its breeding range, though in somewhat less numbers in the north,and south to the Gulf coast, west at least to central Texas. Many ofthe occurrences farther west have also been in winter.Egg dates.?Massachusetts : Early April to July. New Jersey : 12records, April 10 to May 16. Utah : 7 records, April 9 to May 7.History of its spread.?After many attempts to introduce the star-ling into North America it was "successfully" introduced in CentralPark, New York, in 1890 and 1891, and for six years was confined tothe limits of greater New York. After that the increasingly rapidspread began which in little over a half century took it to the Pacificcoast. A study of the chronology of this spread shows that it wasnot a steady progi*ession but somewhat spasmodic ; a big expansion inone year followed bv several years while the territory gained was filledin and little new occupied. How much transportation has helped inthis spread is problematical, but some long jumps have suggested thatbirds may have been "stowaways."By 1912 starlings were breeding from eastern Massachusetts toeastern Pennsylvania and winter flocks had reached Washington, D. C.They continued to move southward in winter until northern Florida(Amelia Island) was reached by individuals in 1918, by which timebreeding birds had reached southern Maine. The first specimen fromwest of the Allegheny Mountains was collected in 1916 at West La-fayette, Ohio; Canada was reached in 1919 at Brockville, Ontario; by1925 they were breeding at Ottawa, and individuals had arrived inNova Scotia. The mountains having been crossed there was a notice-able southwestward drift in winter. A flock reached southern Louisi- STARLING 213ana (near Baton Rouge) in December 1921, and by 1926 many smallflocks were present in winter. By this time the breeding range hadbeen extended to western Ohio and northern Georgia. Many of thefirst winter records were of starlings found in blackbird roosts. By1928 the breeding range was approximately to the Mississippi Riverfrom southern Wisconsin to Tennessee. The extension of the breedingrange into the Southeastern States has been slow. Many birds arepresent in winter. No evidence of nesting in Florida was reporteduntil 1932 (Pensacola) and 1937 (Jacksonville).The next 10 years saw marked progi'ess westward in the North-ern States. In 1938 starlings bred in northwestern North Dakota(Des Lacs Wildlife Refuge), western Minnesota (Madison), easternNebraska (Uehling), and northwestern Arkansas (Rogers). Youngbirds banded that summer at Des Lacs Refuge furnished in the fol-lowing winter the first records for Montana (Lindsay) and Saskatche-wan (Tyvan).Meantime the advance to the southwestward also had been rapid.The first record for Texas was a bird found dead at Cove in 1925,but by 1932 others had reached the eastern edge of the plains in thisState and in Oklahoma. In November 1939 it reached the Rio Grandeat El Paso and Albuquerque, N. Mex. ; and crossed the river into Mexicowhere a flock of 25 was seen 9 kilometers south of Nuevo Laredo,Tamaulipas. An individual spent the winter of 1938-39 in Colorado,10 miles south of Monte Vista. In 1937 starlings followed the PlatteRiver into Wyoming as far west as Parco, and the following yearwere found near Denver, Colo. They may have bred in Colorado in1942, but the first positive record was made at Lowry Field, near Den-ver, in May 1943.To date (May 1949) no breeding has been recorded from west ofthe Rocky Mountains although there are records of occurrence fromevery State. The Alleghenies were crossed in 1916, and 25 years laterthe Rockies were crossed, starlings have been observed in 1941 atJackson, Wyo., and Corvallis, Mont. From there (apparently) theyreached Moscow, Idaho, and Lake Malheur, Oreg., in 1943 and Pull-man, Wash., in 1945. Portland, Oreg., was reached from the eastin 1947. In 1889, 20 pairs had been released there and the speciespersisted until about 1901.California was entered from both north and south. In January1942 a specimen was collected from a flock of about 40 near Tulelake,Siskiyou County; and in December 1946 one was taken at Chino,San Bernardino County, the species having crossed Arizona that year.In January 1947 a flock of eight wandered up to the Okanagan Valleyto Oliver, British Columbia, thus completing the roll call of theUnited States and Provinces of Canada. 214 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMSome idea of the extensiveness of starling migi'ations may be gainedfrom a few banding records. Several thousand starlings have beenbanded, the majority in winter roosts. The recoveries of banded birdsindicates that the population of these roosts are drawn from a widearea. Much banding has been done in winter roosts in central Ohioand recoveries have been received from Quebec, Ontario, Michigan,Indiana, Missouri, Tennessee, Mississippi, New York, Pennsylvania,and Maryland. The most distant was from Ste. Marie Bcauce,Quebec, 14 months after banding.A bird banded at Columbus, Ohio, March 11, 1927, was taken atCharleston, Mo., on January 28, 1928, and was the second specimenfrom west of the Mississippi River.A bird banded as a nestling on June 8, 1936, at Ottawa, Ontario, wasfound dead on February 25, 1937, at Thurmont, Md. Another bandedat the same place on June 22, 1936, was captured on December 26,1936, at Ozark, Ark.In August 1938 several young were banded at Des Lacs WildlifeRefuge near Kenmore, N. Dak. One of these was shot at Lindsay,Mont., on February 19, 1939; another was found dead at Billings,Mont., on February 14, 1939, and third at Tyvan, Saskatchewan, inMay 1939.A few records of longevity obtained through banding are of interest.A bird banded at Washington, D. C, on March 23, 1928, was caughtin a pigeon loft at Mount Vernon, N. Y., July 8, 1936. One bandedat Columbus, Ohio, February 16, 1929, was recaptured at the sameplace on March 23, 1939. One banded at Overbrook, Pa., on Novem-ber 24, 1931, was found on March 4, 1939, at Narbeth, Pa. xinotherbanded at Ardmore, Pa., on May 14, 1938, was retrapped at the samestation on JMay 15, 1942.Casual records.?A specimen was sent from Greenland in 1851 tothe Royal Museum at Copenhagen. In a collection at Godthaab,Greenland, there are four specimens taken as follows : Julianehaab,September 10, 1925 ; Fiskenaessit, November 7, 1925 ; Angmagassalik,early summer 1926 ; and Godthaab, May 13, 1927. In the Berlin Mu-seum was a specimen taken in Labrador about 1878. A specimen wastaken in spring about 1917, near Betchewun, Quebec. All these rec-ords suggest the possibility that they may have come from Europerather than from the introduced birds.On March 3, 1929, a dying bird was picked up at St. George, Ber-muda.On October 5, 1936, at M3'ggbukta, on the east coast of Greenland,two specimens were taken from a flock of five, which were identifiedas S. V. zetlandicus. This was following an exceptionally hard galeat sea. CRESTED MYNAH 215AETHIOPSAR CRISTATELLUS CRISTATELLUS (Linnaens)CRESTED MYNAHHABITSAnother foreign bird of questionable value has established a foot-hold in North America, much to the regret of the bird lovers of thiscountry and causing much apprehension as to its spread and as to itseffect on our native avifauna. If it proves to be as aggressive and asdominant as that other member of the starling family tliat has overrunour country, its coming will indeed be a calamity. But perhaps weare too apprehensive. Perhaps our climate may not suit it or someof our natural barriers may hinder its spread. And perhaj^s it maynot prove to be so undesirable as we fear. In its native home in Chinait does not seem to be too unpopular. J. D. D. La Touche (1926)writes: "The Chinese Crested Mynah is the characteristic bird of theplains and lowlands of cultivated South China, ascending in Yunnanto the plateaux of that province. It is the faithful companion of thehusbandman, following the plough in winter to gather the insects andworms brought to the surface, often in the fields using the back of thecattle as a perch, and doubless ridding them of many an unpleasantparasite. * * * On the whole it is a useful bird, being in greatpart insectivorous and granivorous, but not a devourer of field crops.In gardens, however, it probably levies toll on the vegetables andfruit."Most of what follows is taken from a comprehensive paper on thespecies by Scheffer and Cottam (1935) , to which the reader is referredfor many interesting details and references and which can only bepartially condensed in this account. They summarize its presentstatus and prospects in North America as follows : The crested myna, or Chinese sturliug, was introduced into British Columbiaabout 1897 by persons unknown, possibly by an oriental resident of the Vancouverdistrict. The first specimens taken by a naturalist were collected in 1904. Theincrease of the bird in its new home was slow, peak numbers having been reachedabout 1925 to 1927, and there appears to have been no increase during the nextfew years. Apparently only one brood a year is raised in the Vancouver district.Climatic conditions do not appear to favor the crested myna in British tlolum-bia, as regards either increase in abundance or extension of range. Its furtherdispersal to the north seems barred by high mountains and forested interior;to the west and south are ocean straits; hence any further spread wouldapparently have to be to the east or southeast.J. A. Munro (1922) writes : Nothing definite is known regarding the introduction of this species toVancouver. One story has it that a large wicker cage containing a numberof these birds, consigned to a Japanese resident, was broken open in transitfrom one of the Oriental liners and the birds escaped. Other stories are to the 216 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM effect that its introduction was deliberate. * * The increase of thisspecies has not been as spectacular as that of the House Swallow [sparrow], butwithin the last few years it has been steady and they are gradually spreadingfrom Vancouver into the rural districts. In common with the House Sparrow,they frequent the city streets in order to feed on the undigested grain in horse-droppings. The curtailment of this food supply that followed the change fromhorse-traflSc to motor-traflBc no doubt served to check their increase as it has alsoreduced the Sparrow population.Referring to tlie increase in the numbers of the crested mynah inVancouver, William N. Kelly (1927) says that he "first observed themearly in 1909 at their roosting place on the building at the southwestcorner of Cordover and Carrall Streets. There were not many inthe colony at that time, possibly a few hundreds. Now their mainroosting territory takes in about four city blocks adjacent to theoriginal rookery, and they have also been observed congregating insmaller bands to roost in the East End of the city, the West End, andextending to New Westminster. It is estimated by some that thecolony now exceeds 20,000 birds. They have also been reported fromBellingham, Washington."The above estimate seems high, but it evidently refers to the concen-tration in winter roosts; j^robably less than half of that numberremain to nest within the city. In considering the chances of awidespread invasion of the crested mynah into the United States, itmust be remembered that its natural habitat is in the comparativelywarm climate of central and southern China, and that the countriesinto which it has been introduced and has succeeded in raising morethan one brood a year, such as the Philippines, are tropical or semi-tropical. Should it become established in California, it might spreadover the warmer portions of this country. But it probably wouldnot thrive in the colder climate of our Northern States, as has theEuropean starling which came from colder climate.F. W. Cook reported to Scheffer and Cottara (1935) that on August13, 1929, he observed a party of 12 mynahs about a mile from the headof Lake Washington on Sammamish River, Wash., though they werenot seen again. And in February 1924 one was seen in Portland,Oreg., as recorded by AVood (1924) and others.Nesting.?Lq. Touche (192G) says of the nesting habits of the crestedmynah in China : "The breeding-season is from April onwards, andI have taken hard-set eggs on the 29th of May. There are probablytwo broods, as in Kwangtung the latest date given by Vaughan andJones for fresh eggs is the 4tli of July. These authors give the birdas double-brooded for the majority. All kinds of situations aretaken for the nest: holes in buildings, hollow trees, IMagpies' nests,and often, according to the same authors, Kingfishers' nests are fa-vourite sites. The materials consist of all kinds of rubbish, and everynest invariably contains a snake slough." ? CRESTED MTNAH 217Scheffer and Cottam (1935) write:The nesting time of the crested myna in the Vancouver district covers about10 to 12 weeks in May, June, and July. * * * The crested myna is not soconfiding and persistent as the English sparrow {Passer domcsticus) , but wherepersecuted or unduly disturbed, it will usually abandon its hnmemaking to tryelsewhere. * * *For nesting sites, the crested myna apparently requires a nearly enclosedspace. It does not incline to build, like the robin or the English sparrow, onsupports partly in the open or with semishelter. In fields and woods, the nestsare usually made in the tree holes that sometimes result from decay in the deadstubs, but more frequently from excavations made by flickers {C'olaptcs cafcr)or other woodpeckers. As many as half a dozen or more such holes occupiedby mynas may sometimes be seen in a single tree trunk on logged-off and burned-over land that has a covering of low, second-growth trees and shrubs. Aboutthe city the nests are commonly made in enclosed shelters formed by the cornices,eaves, chimneys, and drain spouts of buildings. Sometimes they are in theboxing of guy wires on line poles. Mynas will also occupy tree boxes placedfor them or for other birds.The nests themselves are mere collections of trashy materials assem))led fromany available source not too remote for economy in flight, such as bits of grassand weeds, foil, cellophane, and other candy and gum wrappings, feathers,snake skins, rubber bands, and fine rootlets. * * *The following summary was made of notes kept by Scheffer and Gummingon the nesting of a pair of crested mynas in a tree box placed in a garden atVancouver : The pair first appeared at the nesting site on April 14 and spent 14days in building the nest, the first egg being laid April 28. Five days wererequired to complete the clutch, one egg each day. * * *It is difficult to learn by direct observation just v,'hen the season of broodrearing naturally closes ; for, because of the bird's association with humanhabitations, many nests are inadvertently broken up from time to time, andthe nesting pairs are forced to seek new sites and try again. Sometimes, too,the bii'ds or their nests are disturbed with hostile intent by city dwellers whodo not care to have the foreign intruders about the premises. Tlie crested mynais not so confiding and persistent as the English sparrow {Passer domcsticus) , but where persecuted or unduly disturbed, it will usually abandon its home-making and try elsewhere.Vaughan and Jones (1913) , writing of southeastern China, say : "TheMynah breeds plentifully at Hong Kong and elsewhere on the KwangTung coast, where, as a rule, some hole in a building, the top of awaste-water pipe, or still more frequently the deserted hole of one ofthe Kingfishers, is made use of. In the latter, a sort of step is alwaysscratched at the lower portion of the orifice, which is also consider-ably enlarged. Up the West River and inland the favourite site isan old Magpie's nest, though ruinous old pagodas and holes in treesare also made use of, and the deserted nest of Graculipica nigricollis issometimes resorted to. In suitable situations breeding-colonies areoften found."Eggs.?The usual set for the crested mynah consists of four or fiveeggs, sometimes six and rarely seven. La Touche ( 1926) says the eggsare "greenish blue, the surface smooth and glossy." Wilson C. Hanna843290?50 15 218 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM tells me that a set of five eggs in his collection are elliptical-oval andvery slightly glossy; they were collected by R. A. Gumming in SouthVancouver, British Columbia. Their color is uniform "light Niagaragreen." Vaiighan and Jones (1913) state that eggs pure white incolor have been taken, and that "eggs wdth a few spots have occurredlater on in the season."The measurements of 19 American eggs average 80.6 by 21.7 milli-meters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 33.2 by 21.4, 31.5by 23.0, and 28.5 by 19.0 millimeters.Young.?Eeferring to the nest observed by Scheffer and Gumming,Scheffer and Gottam (1935) say:On the evening of May in, the first egg was found to be hatched, and allthe eggs were pipped, an incubation period of 14 days. The young birds leftthe nest and perched on a branch 27 days after hatching. After that they were fedor were aided in feeding by the parent birds for about 7 days, when, on June19, they were able to shift for themselves. The actual lapsed time, therefore,from the first appearance of the mynas at their nesting site until the fledglingswere able to care for themselves was G6 days, a surprisingly long period andone that would seem to preclude the habitual rearing of a second brood in thislocality and latitude. Accurate observations by Gumming through severalyears of intimate field acquaintance with the species seem to strengthen con-clusions reached by Scheffer. * * * a nesting pair has been observed to feedits young as late as the first week in August, but most of the broods are outmuch earlier. Whether the species is commonly two-brooded is a matter difficultto determine without banding studies.Plumages.?Young birds in juvenal plumage in June are dull, sooty,dark brown above and below, without any gloss; the crest is onlyrudimentary, barely discernible; the wings and tail are like those ofthe adult, nearly black, but the white tips on the lateral rectrices arelacking ; the under tail lacks the white tips. I have seen young birdsin full juvenal plumage up to August 25, indicating that the post-juvenal molt comes later. Adults have a complete j)ostnuptial moltfrom August to October; some birds complete this molt before theend of August, others not until late in October.Food.?Scheffer and Gottam (1935) give the following summaryof the food of this species : In the laboratory study of tlie food habits of the crested myna, which wasundertaken after the field studies of 1931-32, 117 adult and 20 juvenile stomachswere examined. These were collected over tlie 8-raonth period from May toDecember. Stomach analyses and field observations show that the bird isdecidedly omnivorous, with a partiality for fruits and for foods from suchunsavory sources as garbage dumps and manure piles. Availability seems tobe the chief factor in its choice of food. The average monthly diet of adults was38.89 percent animal and 61.11 percent vegetable matter, with fruits of variousspecies aggregating 32.49 percent, insects 22.44 percent, garbage 14.6 percent,and leafy vegetable material 8.57 percent. The nestlings are predominantlyinsectivorous. During the latter part of summer self-feeding juveniles andadults are highly frugivorous. CRESTED MYNAH 219Favorite feeding- grounds are in the Chinese gardens, where manureand garbage piles have been allowed to accumulate. Here "they mayflock together in small groups or in numbers up to a hundred or more.It is not unconnnon for the birds to feed about an abattoir, pigpen,corral, or pasture, and v.'hile foraging frequently to associate withcrows (Corvus hrachyrhynchos) , English sparrows, and gulls {Larusspp.)."Their table showing the percentages by month of the various fooditems breaks down into the following monthly averages for the follow-ing items: Flies, 11.04 percent; moths and caterpillars, 4.99 percent;wasps, bees, and ants, 1.85 percent; bugs, 1.72 percent; beetles, 1.24percent; grasshoppers, etc., 0.45 percent; miscellaneous insects, 1.15percent ; spiders, 2.82 percent ; earthworms, 4.08 percent ; wild fruits,27.80 percent; cultivated fruits, 4.70 percent; and grain, 2.54 per-cent. Although most of the insects eaten are injurious or neutral,a few useful forms are taken, such as predacious ichneumonoid wasps,of which 16 were found in one stomach, and useful ground beetles.The mynah does good work in the destruction of house flies, whichit finds in the garbage and manui-e piles in larval and adult stages."No fewer than 225 pupae, 20 larvae, and 1 adult of the housefly werefound in one stomach and more than 200 larvae and pupae were foundin two others. Three additional July stomachs each contained morethan 100 of these flies." Tent caterpillars, cutworms, and measuringworms, all very destruotive, made up the larger part of the lepidopter-ous food.The mynah's record on its vegetable food is not so good. About one-third of its food consists of fruits and berries; most of these arewild varieties, such as elderberries, wild cherries, blueberries, crow-berries, snowberries, salmonberries, loganberries, and serviceberries,as well as the fruits of cascara, dogwood, mountain-ash, sumac, andnightshade; but a substantial amount of the food consists of culti-vated cherries, strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries, and somedamage is done to apples and pears, cabbages, and lettuce ; the amountof grain eaten is small and is mainly waste grain picked up in the fieldsafter harvesting or taken from garbage or manure piles.Mr. Kelly (1927) says that the eggs of smaller birds "form a largepart" of the diet.It can be seen from the above account that there is a great poten-tiality for harm in the feeding habits of the crested mynah; if itshould become very abundant in the fruit-raising districts of thePacific States, it could do an immense amount of damage. It mightprove even worse than the European starling, which has a far betterrecord as a destroyer of harmful insects. For this reason, its spreadshould be carefully watched and controlled before it is too late. 220 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMBehavior.?La Touche (1926) says of the habits of the crestedmynah in China : At night it roosts in company with other Starlings and with Jackdaws andother Corvidae on tall banihoos and trees to the accompaniment of * * * theusual shrieks and cries peculiar to the Starlings. Companionable as it is withthe ploughman and workers in the fields, it is wary and shy with the suspectedstranger. But, taken at the nest and brought up by hand, the Crested Mynahmakes a most delightful pet, distinguishing its owner and liecoming exceedinglytame and familiar. I have bad many of these birds, and, but for their accipitrinefailing which they share with the Crow family, they make quite the most enjoy-able bird-companion one can have. They are good talkers, equal to most Par-rots, and are docile and easily taught. With the Chinese this Mynah is a valuedcage-bird, and great numbers are reared by hand every spring in South China.One of the worst things that can be said against the mynah is thatit competes with some of our most useful species in its nesting habitsand in its feeding habits; berry-bearing trees and shrubs are soonstripped of their fruit, so that our native birds have to look elsewherefor their food supply ; it not only drives away our hole-nesting birdsfrom their accustomed hollows in the trees or from bird boxes, but itdestroys their eggs or young in order to preempt the site. As a result,many of native woodpeckers, bluebirds, and wrens have disappearedfrom sections where they were once common. The mynahs have alsobeen reported as destroying the eggs and young in open nests, suchas those of robins; these were probably taken for food.Scheffer and Cottam (1935) write:In conflict with the flicker, the myna shows tact and persistence. If a newhome of the former is under construction in a tree stub, the mynas will waitpatiently for its completion, coming around occasionally to note progress. "S^Tbenit is ready for use, several paii'S of the intruders may contest for its possession,giving the impression that they are "ganging up" on the unfortunate homebuilder. The result is always the same?eviction of the woodpecker tenants.When the myna wishes to build its home where a native bird has alreadymade progress in rearing a family, it tosses out both eggs and young withlittle ceremony. * * *For a time after dispersal from the nests, late in summer and early in fall,crested mynas are associated in small groups, probably family parties re-maining about the old nesting sites or in flight to and from feeding grounds.This habit was particularly noticeable at the time of the first visit of Schefferto the Vancouver district, in August. It is in considerable contrast to theflocking habits of Brewer's blackbirds, which assemble in great numbers atthis season. * * *Though sometimes observed feeding with other birds, particularly Brewer'sblackbirds, in the gardens and grainfields of the Fraser River delta, the mynahas .shown no disposition to drift with them in migration, and at roosting time,it clannishly associates with its kind. When rougher weather comes on, thesebirds resort more and more to close-foliaged trees for shelter or roosting at night,and for accommodations for larger groups than family parties.The large myna roost in the heart of Vancoiiver city, near the waterfront,in the glare of street lights and the confused noise of trafiic, has been the subjectof much comment and many reports for several years. This section is but CRESTED MYNAH 221 little occupied by the birds each year until early winter, when they begin toassemble at evening in large numbers. Almost from the earliest recalled timeof the arrival of the mynas, their noisy roosts have been associated with theChristmas season, and the birds have been known locally as "Christmasbirds." * * *First arrivals at the roost were noted between 3 and 4 : 30 p. m., and fromthat time until nearly dark the mynas drifted in by twos, threes, half dozens,or as many as 15 to 20 in a flock. Apparently the larger groups had assembleden route. Most of the birds came down one street, from the east, flying re-markably low, scarcely over the tops of the cars, and swung up steeply to perchabout the eaves and cornices of the buildings, where new arrivals joined inthe noisy chatter of greeting from those earlier on the roost. After a timesome would fly to the ground or pavement in search of bits of food. * * *In the morning the mynas left the roost as soon as it was fully light and scat-tered to feed. In a walk of 3 miles eastward into the suburbs, Scheffer andGumming observed the birds singly or by twos and threes on small trees or onhouse roofs in the residential district.Voice.?The same authors say : "Scheffer finds the whistling notesalways cheerful, in the nesting period even quite musical. Severalcalls may be recognized, the longer ones including a rolling trill, andall are distinguishable from the songs of our native birds by theirpeculiar 'foreign accent.' At roosting time in the winter season thereis more or less chatter from flocking numbers. In his acquaintancewith these introduced birds, Scheffer has noted no calls in imitation ofnative species. In its own habitat the myna is sometimes creditedwith being a mocker."La Touche (1926) says that the Chinese bird is a good talker: "Itsvoice is loud, but often musical and always cheery, and it has apleasant song mixed with a variety of hard, throaty. Starling notes."Field marks.?The crested mynah is a well-marked bird, a short,chunky, glossy black bird, about the size of a robin ; it has a prominentcrest hanging forward over its yellow bill, a short tail with narrowwhite tips, and a large white patch in the wing, most conspicuous inflight. It has a somewhat labored, straightaway flight, ]jy which it canbe distinguished at a distance from a robin or a Brewer's blackbird. Onthe ground it usually walks instead of hopping.DISTRIBUTIONContributed by Bernard William TuckerRcmge.?South China from south Yunnan to the Yangtse Valleyinclusive. Reaching in Shensi to the Hanchong-fu Valley. Intro-duced in the Philippines. As an introduced bird in North America,established in the district of Vancouver, British Columbia; describedin 1921 as extending perhaps 20 miles east and west and about thesame distance north and south, comprising North Vancouver, Sea 222 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMIsland, Lulu Island, and other parts of the Fraser Kiver Delta, eastto New Westminster and Coquitlam and south to Ladner, Singleindividuals or small parties recorded as far afield as Portland, Oreg.(1924), Bellingham, Wash. (1927 or earlier), Chilliwack, BritishColumbia (1930 or earlier), near the head of Lake Washington( 1929) , and Vancouver Island (1937) . Egg dates.?British Columbia : 6 recoi-ds, April 28 to June 2.China : 2 records, May 29 and July 4.Family VIREONIDAE : VireosVIREO ATRICAPILLUS WoodhouseBLACK-CAPPED VIREOHABITSThis well-marked and handsome vireo was discovered by Dr. S. W.Woodhouse while attached to Capt. L. Sitgreaves's expedition downthe Zuni and Colorado Rivers. He took two specimens, both males,near the source of the Rio San Pedro in w^estern Texas on May 26,1851. About three years later a third specimen was taken by J. H.Clark, one of the naturalists of the Mexican Boundary Connnission,not far from the same locality. Not much more was learned about ituntil William Brewster (1879) got in touch with Edmund Rick-secker and W. H. Werner, who had acquired three sets of eggs, takenin Comal County, Tex., in 1878. Mr. Werner gave Mr. Brewsterconsiderable information about this, then very rare, vireo. He foundthem in the northwestern part of Comal County, along the GuadaloupeRiver. "They were not A^ery plenty; I noticed during my ramblesten to twelve specimens in a radius of about ten miles, in the courseof six weeks. The peculiar song of the male first attracted ray at-tention, and as soon as I saw the bird I was sure that it belonged tothe Vireo genus. They seemed to prefer mountainous districts; atleast I always found them in such localities. They frequented lowbrushwood, and built their nests from three to four feet above theground."Since then, much has been learned about the distribution and habitsof the black-capped vireo. It is now known to breed from south-western Kansas, southward through Oklahoma and southwesternTexas, and to winter in Mexico at least as far south as Sinaloa.In Kansas, Col. N. S. Goss (1891) found them quite common insummer in the deep ravines in the gypsum hills. "These birds arevery local in their distribution, and, until of late, very little has beenknown in regard to their habits. They inhabit the oak woods uponthe u])lands, and the bushes and trees in the ravines on bluffy prairielands." BLACK-CAPPED VIREO 223C. D. Bunker (1910) describes somewhat similar nesting haunts inBhiine County, Okla. : "In the locality of which I speak, the canyonswere about three hundred and twenty feet deep, with outcroppingsof gypsum rock from bottom to top, with a strong salt stream runningat the bottom. The only fresh water for miles was a spring on theridge, a quarter of a mile above the head of the canyon. The canyonwalls, and gulches leading to the canyons, w^ere studded with clumpsof bushes, mostly dog-wood, scrub-oak and similar shrubs formingideal cover for vireos, of which Vireo heUi was not uncommon. Onone occasion a nest of a Bell Vireo was found in the same bush v/iththat of a Black-cap."George F. Simmons (1025) says that its haunts in central Texasare "typically, scrub-oak ridges, ravines, and canyons. Hottest imag-inable places on sterile ridges or backbones among peaks of the smallmountains or limestone hills of central Texas, among clumps of scruboak, cedar, broad-leaved deciduous bushes, and chaparral brush, scan-tily scattered among small mountain live oaks and shaded mountainSpanish oak thickets on steep, sterile, rocky slopes of peaks whichbreak in endless strata down to the valleys below ; scrub oak thickets ; oak thickets along bottoms of dry ravines; vine-grown thickets oncanyon walls."Nesting.?Wq are indebted to Mr. Brewster (1870) for the first pub-lished account of the nesting habits of this vireo, in which he says that "to Mr. Werner is due all credit for discovering the first authenticnest of the Black-capped Vireo known to science. Those received byMr. Ricksecker were collected May 2G and June 13 respectively."That was in 1878, in Comal County, Tex. The former came to Mr.Brewster and was said to have been built in a "red-oak tree." Mr.Brewster describes it as follows : "It is suspended in the fork of twovery slender twigs, and is in every way after the usual type of Viieoninearchitecture. In a few points of detail, however, it differs slightlyfrom any Vireo's nest that I have seen. Although, generally speak-ing, of the ordinary cup-shaped form, the walls are unusually thickand firmly felted, and the entrance being verj^ much contracted, thebulging sides arch over the mouth of the nest, giving to the whole anearly spherical shape."After confessing his lack of knowledge of Texas botany, he writes:The groat bulk of the structure, however, is made up of line strips of reddishbark, probably from some species of cedar, layers of small, delicate, bleachedleaves of a former year's growth, a few coarse grasses, one or two catkins, andseveral spiders' cocoons. Tliese are firmly bound together, and the wholeattached to the forked twigs above by fine shreds of vegetable fibre, cater-pillars' or spiders' silk, and sheep's wool. The lining is of fiine grasses andwhat appear to be the slender needles of some coniferous tree, the whole beingarranged with that wonderful smoothness and care which belong to the highestorder of nestbuilders alone. * * * Greatest external diameter, 2.90 ; ex- 224 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMternal depth, 2.25 ; internal diameter at mouth, 1.30 x 1.68 ; internal depth, 1.40 ; greatest thickness of walls, .63.Of the measurements of the other nest, he says: "The greatestdiameter is 3 niches ; inside diameter, 1.75 inch ; depth, 1.80 inch ; thick-ness of walls, from .45 to .60 of an inch."Mr. Simmons (1925) says of the nest location in central Texas: "2to 6, rarely 15, usually 4, feet from the ground, suspended from hori-zontal forked twig of small scrub oak, live oak, Spanish oak, or elmbush or stunted tree, usually among low shin oaks and elms and dwarfplum thickets on dry hillsides near a stream, a habitat never frequentedby the White-eyed Vireo; in tangled thickets of dewberry; in lowtrees on edge of thick mountain shrubbery; less commonly, in deepshady ravines where the White-eyed Vireo places its nests."Mr. Bunker (1910) says of the nests found in Blaine County, Okla. : The nesting habits of the Black-cap are unlike Bell's, in that it always buildsin the center of a bush or rather in a clump of bushes instead of on the outeredge, slips away upon the approach of an intruder, and if singing or scoldingin a bush, you may depend upon it, that the nest is nowhere near. * * *Nests were found at the bottom of canyons, and steep canyon walls, uplands,and little draws leading to the canyons. They nested in jack-oak, dogwood,wild plum, China berry and like shrubs. No matter where the nest was built,on bottom lands, or ravines, the bush in which it was placed was always abovehigh water mark. * * *I was fortunate enough to watch the construction of one nest from start tofinish. The weaving was accomplisht after the fibers had all been attacht tothe forked twig, and hung down like a fringe. The female would dart downfrom a nearby twig, catch the end of a fiber in her bill, fly up to the opposite sideof the fork, draw up the fiber a little at a time, turning her head from side toside, as if studying her work, and then secure it.Eggs of the eastern, and more often those of the dwarf, cowbird aresometimes found in the nests of this vireo.Eggs.?Three to five eggs may make up the full set for the black-capped vireo, but four seems to be the commonest number. These areordinarily ovate in shape, but some are slightly pointed and othersare somewhat elongated. The shell is smooth, without gloss, purewhite in color and always (?) entirely spotless. The measurementsof 50 eggs averaged 17.6 by 13.1 millimeters; the eggs showing the fourextremes measure 19.3 by 12.7, 18.8 by 14.7, 16.0 by 12.7, and 16.7 by12.2 millimeters.Incuhafion.?The period of incubation does not seem to have beendetermined. Both sexes assist in the duties of incubation and usuallystick so closely to the nest that they can almost be touched. Nothingseems to have been published on the development and care of theyoung, but probably both parents do their shares of this work. Mr.Simmons (1925) says that "usually one, rarely two, broods" are raisedin a season.Plumages.?Mr, Kidgway (1904) says that the juvenal plumage BLACK-CAPPED VIREO 225is similar to that of the adult, "but without black or clear gray onhead, which is replaced by grayish brown or brownish gray; olive-green of back, etc., browner ; white of under parts and head markingsmuch less pure, strongly washed with pale buff or brownish buff, thesides and flanks more brownish olive-green."The sexes are alike in the juvenal plumage, but quite different afterthe postjuvenal molt. For many years it was thought that the sexeswere alike in all plumages, as they are in most of the vireos, butnow it seems to be well-established that the black head markings ofthe male are replaced by slate-gray in the female ; the wing bars andlight edgings of the tertials are yellow in the male and whitish in thefemale ; the olive-green of the back is duller in the female and the whiteof the underparts and head is less pure than in the male. The irisin both sexes is said to be light brick red: Van Tyne and Sutton(1937) call it "a striking shade of light, clear, reddish brown?thisshade in sharp contrast to the whiteness of the eye ring and blacknessof the cap."I have seen no molting birds.Food.?There seems to have been no comprehensive study made ofthe food of the black-capped vireo. Mr. Simmons (1925) makes thebrief statement that it "feeds low among the dwarf shin oak andscrub oak or dwarf plum thickets on ridges and dry hillsides, search-ing for caterpillars, other insects, and their eggs."Behavior.?Mr. Simmons (1925) says that it is "observed singly orin pairs. Very shy and quick, dodging in and out among thick foliageof bushes, and from one dense clump to another; alert, active, andenergetic, hopping and flying briskly about, generally keeping closeto cover of bushes."Evidently the quiet demeanor and deliberate, leisurely movement,so characteristic of most vireos, are quite lacking in the blackcap,for all observers seem to agree on its restless activity. Some say thatit can be easily approached to within a reasonable distance and isreally not very shy, but that its constant hopping and flitting about inthe thick foliage m.ake it a difficult bird to collect. Several have men-tioned being able to almost touch it on the nest when incubating. VanTyne and Sutton (1937) observed that "the birds were given to drop-ping from one perch to a lower perch, letting their bodies swingdownward while still holding tightly with their feet, then suddenlyletting go."Voice.?The black-capped vireo must be a very striking and quiteversatile singer, but one easily recognized when t\\Q form of its songis once learned. Mrs. Nice (1931) listened to one singing in Okla-homa, of which she writes : He sang continuously, giving an extraordinary variety of phrases, all of themharsh, vehement and unmusical. One phrase (tee tear ticit) reminded me of a 226 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMChewink in its timing and pitch, others of a Chat. The number of phrasesgiven per minute was 31, 31, 29, 28, 32. A different bird gave 29 in one minute.Intervals between beginnings of piirases varied from l.S to 3 seconds. No phrasewas given more than once at one time. I was not able to record all of hisexpressions, but the following are samples : hcc-hcc chur, hee prvr, chee-chee-cJice-chec, hee-hee-hee, ivhit tvhit whit, sissiivit lice, hay party, tcr para ch^e, toheep,hur tvee ch6e.The phrases of another bird across the creek were all somewhat different fromthose of the first bird. Some that I recorded are : which er ch^e (a Chewink-likenote), dee dee dee, what Tcie, whip chur whip kee.Mr. Simmons (1925) calls the song, "varied, reminiscent of that ofthe White-eyed Vireo, but less emphatic and more of a gentle Vv'arble;somewhat like the song of the Bell Vireo, but much slower and moredistinct, less of a helter-skelter roundelay ; a subdued, low, sweet, per-sistent musical warble, neither hurried nor slow, as though the birdwere making insistent efforts to pronounce its name; * * * alsointerpreted as a loud, emphatic, liquid tJiere now, wait-a-hit or comehere, right-now-quich. First and second usually alternate at regularintervals; first and sixth end with a peculiar, fine, tinkling, bell-likequality which is very attractive. * * * Sings from arrival inMarch until mid-August, frequently from the nest after the mannerof the Bell Vireo. A hoarse alarm note."William Lloyd (1887) says that "the song is loud, clear, and verymusical, and the singer generally selects some blasted pecan stump forthe site of his vocal efforts. The female has also a song, sweet, but notparticularly noticeable."Field marks.?The conspicuous black and white head pattern of themale is diagnostic and that of the female is only duller in color. Noother vireo even approaches this, and there is no other bird within itshabitat for which the black-capped vireo might be mistaken.DISTRIBUTIONRange.?Southern Kansas to central Mexico.Breeding range.?The breeding range of the black-capped vireoseems to be very restricted. Nests have been found north to centralsouthern Kansas (Comanche County, one record) ; north-central Okla-homa (Stillwater and Tulsa). East to east-central Oklahoma (Tulsaand Spencer) ; and central Texas (Dallas, Waco, Austin, New Braun-fcls, and Castroville) . South to south-central and southwesternTexas (Castroville, Medina, High Bridge, Langley, and the ChisosMountains). It seems probable that it breeds also in northernCoahuila, but at present no data are available. West to southwesternTexas (Chisos Mountains, Glass IMountains, and San Angelo) ; south-western Oklahoma (Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge) ; and cen-tral southern Kansas (Comanche County). WHITE-EYED VIREO 227Winte?' range.?So far as is known the black-headed vireo in winteris confined to the southern half of Sinaloa. Specimens from VolcanToliica, Mexico, on September 11, and Santa Leonor, Tamaulipas, onApril 12, were probably migrant individuals.Migration.?Few records are available. The dates of occurrence inSinaloa are from September 22 to March 20. In Texas they havearrived at Kerrville by March 19 and have been seen at San Angelo toSeptember 25.Casual records.?The black-capped vireo has been taken in easternNebraska twice; near Bellevue, on June 19, 1894, and at Meadow, onMay 19, 1921. Both localities are just south of Omaha.Egg dates.?Oklahoma : 7 records, May 20 to July 20.Texas : 26 records, April 17 to June 23 ; 13 records, May 15 to June 3,indicating the height of the season.VIREO GRISEUS GRISEUS (Boddaert)WHITE-EYED VIREOHABITSThe typical white-eyed vireo is widely distributed and well knownthroughout the eastern half of the United States. Its range extendsnortheastward into eastern Massachusetts, where it is only locallydistributed. I know of only a few places in my section of the Statewhere it can be found, mainly in low, swampy, briery thickets alongthe banks of some tiny stream. We always look for it in these placesand seldom fail to find it, though it is more often heard than seen.This vireo was formerly quite common in the vicinity of Cambridge,Mass., but has since become scarce; William Brewster (1906) says ofits haunts there : "During the years of their comparative abundancetheir favorite summer haunts were briery thickets covering swampyor very moist ground, but scattered pairs were occasionally foundnesting in upland pastures among barberry bushes or other lowgrowing shrubs."Referring to its haunts in Greene County, Pa., Dr. Samuel S.Dickey (1938) writes: "In habitat the White-eyed Vireo shows par-tiality to swamps, swales, and glades; yet, in districts from whichsuch features are lacking, it is found inhabiting old fields grown upin a variety of native vegetation. Favorites among areas so chosenseem to be those where the cover consists of saplings of maple and elmassociations; or of small trees and shrubs such as wild plum, witchhazel, burning bush, and the dogwoods and willows, and even an alderstand. The ground cover may be of such growth as cat-briers {Smilaxsp.), wild oats grass {Danthonia spicata)., ground pine {Lycopodiumcomplanatum var. ftahelUforme), or other associated plants." 228 BULLETm 197, XJNITED STATES NATIONAL liIUSEUMProf. Maurice Brooks writes to me : "This is a bird that has beensteadily enlarging its breeding range within the central Appalachianregion during the past 20 years. In the early days of this century,these vireos were found only in the less elevated river valleys of theState [West Virginia], About 1920 they appeared in fair numbers inUpshur County, at elevations up to 1,800 feet. Within comparativelyrecent years, they have become common at IMorgantown, only a fewmiles from the Pennsylvania border, and they are to be found in afew of the southwestern Pennsylvania counties."The white-eye is partial to brushy country, rather than to thelarger forests, conditions which have followed the death of theAmerican chestnuts from bark disease have favored the spread of thebirds. A typical region in which the birds are abundant will havea fringe of standing dead chestnut trees, surrounded by numerouschestnut sprouts, and covered with grape vines, Virginia creeper, andother climbers. Here the birds seem completely at home. Fartherto the south they reach elevations well above 2,000 feet, and nest inrhododendron and American holly thickets."Farther south and west its haunts seem to be of the same generalcharacter, where it may sometimes be found in such places as onewould look for the other low-nesting vireos, the black-capped orBell's, or with such birds as catbirds, brown thrashers, chats, andcertain wrens.Courtship.?The only note I can find on this subject is the followingbj' Bradford Torrey (1885) : "Pretty soon a pair of the birds appearednear me, the male protesting his affection at a frantic rate, and thefemale repelling his advances with a snappish determination whichmight have driven a timid suitor desperate. He posed before her,puffing out his feathers, spreading his tail, and crying hysterically,y^Pi y^Vi yaoih.,?the last note a downright whine or snarl, worthy ofthe catbird. Poor soul ! he was well-nigh beside himself, and couldnot take no for an answer, even when the word was emphasized withan ugly dab of the beloved's beak. The pair shortly disappeared in theswamp."Nesting?The only nest of the white-eyed vireo that I ever succeededin finding in my home territory was unexpectedly discovered in Ee-hoboth, Mass., on June G, 1908, in what was, to me, an unlikely localityfor this vireo, which we had always found singing in low, damp thick-ets. The locality was an old abandoned cemetery on high, dry landnear a village; arborvitae trees had been planted in regular rows andhad grown up to considerable size, 20 to 25 feet in height; after manyyears of neglect the spaces between the trees had been largely over-grown with small wild cherry trees, other saplings, and thickets ofblackberries and other underbrush. While hunting through this area,where broAvn thrashers, catbirds, and purple flinches were nesting, we WHITE-EYED VIREO 229 were surprised to hear the unmistakable song of a white-eyed vireo. Athorough search resulted in finding the nest, suspended from a forkedtwig of a small wild cherry sapling, 20 inches from the gi'ound, in alittle thicket of underbrush and briers between two of the arborvitae.The nest was a beautiful structure, woven mainly of strips of inner barkand grasses, mixed with soft plant fibers and plant down, bound to-gether with spider's silk, and lined with fine grasses; it was prettilydecorated externally with green mosses, lichens, bits of paper, andpieces of wasps' nests, a large piece of the latter forming a tip at thebottom of the long nest (pi. 25) . While I was photographing the nest,both birds appeared; they seemed much concerned and were quitefearless, one of them alighting on the nest in front of the camera. Thenest contained four fresh eggs.Another eastern Massachusetts nest is recorded in Frederic H. Ken-nard's notes for May 26, 1912. It was placed in the middle of a tangleof Viburnimi. dentatum bushes, about 3 feet from the ground ; it wasattached to a twig so slender that when the bird sat on the nest,the twig hung down at a sharp angle; fortunately, the nest was toodeep for the single egg to fall out. The bird sat fearlessly while fourpeople walked to within six feet of the nest, and he almost crawledunder her before she left.While collecting with W. George F. Harris, near Old Lyme, Conn.,on June 2, 1934, he found a white-eyed vireo's nest, about 3 feet abovethe ground, suspended from a fork of a horizontal branch of a smallyellow birch, in a briery thicket. It was beautifully made and verydeep ; the exterior was composed of small pieces of rotted wood andshreds of bark held together with cobwebs; it was lined with fineplant stems and a few pieces of fine dry gi'ass.Frank W. Braund has sent me the data for two of the nests in hiscollection; one nest, taken in Adams County, Ohio, on June 6, 1939,was in a small crotch at the end of a limb in a dense wild plumb tree,4 feet up, in a honey locust grove; the other was taken at St. Peters-burg, Florida, on April 22, 1942, in an extensive field of gardenias;it was 2 feet above the ground, attached to a small crotch at the end of abranch of a large gardenia.M. G. Vaiden, of Rosedale, Miss., writes to me of his experience withthe white-eyed vireo in his State : "I have record of 11 nests. Generallythis bird nests in or near openings in heavy woodland among thebroken and fallen limbs, where vines, blackberry bushes, etc., havegrown up forming a tangle. The nests are placed 3 to 6 feet aboveground. The nests here are generally very poorly made affairs whenlooked on from the outside. A nest I have in my collection, alongwith four eggs, would have been overlooked completely, had we not seenthe bird carrying leaves to the nest. The nest is composed of, wemight say, a cluster of old leaves of oak, pecan, and maple, lined with 230 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMfine rootlets and grass; yet the construction of the actual nest is com-posed of larger sticks, grasses, and rootlets, forming a very pretty nest,should one remove the outer layer of leaves. The nest was in a bramblethiclvet where an old limb had fallen. "I have found this bird nesting along a drainage ditch in AllenGray wood, which is composed of some 10,000 acres of virgin timber.I have found them nesting deep into these woods, but always selectinga site where the growth was greatest, yet near a partial opening inthe woods."There are nine nests of the white-eyed vireo in the Thayer collec-tion in Cambridge that vary considerably in location, size, and com-position. They were placed in various small trees and bushes atheights varying from 26 inches to 5 feet. The largest nest was takenby Arthur T. Wayne at Mount Pleasant, S. C. ; it measures 3 inchesin outside diameter and 3% in height ; the inside diameter is 2 inchesand the depth of the cup 2 inches ; it is prettily made of various plantfibers and is profusely decorated externally w^ith small dry leaves(apparently green when added), delicate strips of thin, buffy innerbark, soft woody fibers, spider cocoons, cotton, wool, etc.; it is linedwith very fine grasses and hairlike fibers. There are six nests fromGeorgia that have the sides and bottoms completely covered withlarge flakes of soft, thin, bufF-colored inner bark, held in place byspider silk and fine fibers. Another nest, from Bristol, R. L, issimilarly decorated with thin strips of light-colored inner bark andthe rim is tightly bound witli wool and cotton.Nests mentioned in the literature do not differ materially from thosementioned above. They have been found placed in a great variety oftrees and shrubs, at heights varying from 1 to 8 feet above the ground,probably occasionally higher. The nests are quite different in shapefrom the nests of the red-eyed vireo, which are cup-shaped ; the nestsof the white-eyed vireo are shaped like an inverted cone, more or lesslong and narrow and quite pointed at the bottom; the nest that Icollected in Rehoboth was not measured, but, judging from my photo-graph, I should think that it was over 4 inches long.Eggs of the different races of the cowbird are often found in thenests of this and the other subspecies; in fact, this species is a com-mon victim of the parasite.Eggs.?The white-eyed vireo lays three to five eggs to a set, usuallyfour. The eggs are generally ovate, rarely more elliptical or slightlypointed. They are pure, lusterless white and are marked with a fewwidely scattered small spots or fine dots of dark brown or blackish ; sometimes these dots are so minute and so few as to make the eggappear immaculate ; very rarel}^ there are a few small blotches aroundthe larger end. The measurements of 50 eggs in the United StatesNational Museum average 18.7 by 14.0 millimeters ; the eggs showing WHITE-EYED VIREO 231the four extremes measure 21.8 by 14.5, 18.8 by 15.2, 17.1 by 13.5, and17.3 by 12.7 millimeters.Incubation.?The duties of incubation are shared by both sexes,and the period has been set at 12 days and at IG days; probably theaverage period is somewhere between these limits, as it is with othervireos. Aretas A. Saunders (1015), who watched a nest from thetime the first egg was laid until the eggs hatched, determined thatthe period was 15 days. He learned to recognize the sexes by theirdifferent behavior and by the song of the male. He says : The two birds showed marked individualitj' in the matter of t'enrlessness, themale being much more so than his mate. * * * Frequent visits to tlie nestfound sometimes one bird and sometimes the other incubating. The femalealways left the nest when I was several feet away and scolded me from a dis-tant point in the thicket. The scolding usually brought her mate to the vicinity,and he never failed to take up his position on the eggs immediately unless myhand was actually on the nest. As time went on his courage increased untilhe would actually peck at my fingers before leaving. * * * [On one] oc-casion the bird pecked vigorously at our fingers, and absolutely refused tooblige us by getting off. We finally had to remove him forcibly. He showedsuch resistance to tlils that we could do it in no way except to grasp him bythe bill and thus lift him off.We seem to have no data on the development of the young, nor anyinformation as to their care and feeding, but it seems fair to assumethat the male does his share of this work, as he does in nest-buildingand incubation. Apparently only one brood is raised in a season inthe North, but probably at least two in the South.Plumages.?The young white-eyed vireo in juvenal plumage is muchlike the adult, but the upperparts are duller and browner, dull brown-ish olive-green ; the line over the eye and the orbital ring are grayishwhite or brownish v/hite, instead of yellow ; the underparts are dullgrayish white, buffy on the throat, and strongly washed on the sides,flanks, and crissum with j^ellowish or buffy; the iris is grayish orbrownish, and does not become white until the next spring.Dr. Dwight (1900) says that the first winter plumage is acquired "by a complete postjuvenal moult beginning about the middle ofAugust. The juvenal dress is worn much longer than that of theother Vireos, becoming rapidly ragged from the thicket-loving habitsof the species and thus probably its complete renew^al is a necessity."But he says that he is not sure that the complete postjuvenal moltoccurs in all specimens. Mr. Forbush ( 1929) says that the postjuvenalmolt is incomplete, as with other vireos, involving the body plumageand the wing coverts, but not the rest of the wings or the tail. I aminclined to think that Forbush is probably right, for I can find nobirds renewing wing or tail feathers at the postjuvenal molt in aconsiderable series that I have examined.The first wdnter plumage is practically the same as the winter 232 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMplumage of the adult, but young birds can be recognized by the grayiris. The spring plumage is produced by wear, without molt, thecolors becoming brighter. Adults have a complete postnuptial moltfrom late July to September. The sexes are alike in all plumages.Food.?The food habits of the white-e3^ed vireo are wholly benefi-cial, with the exception of the negligible number, 1.36 percent, of theuseful ladybird beetles (Coccinellidae) taken, and a few useful Hy-menoptera. And it eats no valuable fruits or berries. Dr. EdwardA. Chapin (1925) says in his report on the contents of 221 stomachsof this species : "Nearly nine-tenths of all the food eaten by the white-eyed vireos is composed of insects, spiders, and other animal matter;of this all but 3.96 percent is of insects. * * * Moths and butter-flies and their larvae (caterpillars) make up slightly less than one-third of the food of this species and form the most important item ofthe diet. Of this portion, 20.66 percent is represented by caterpillars.* * * The yearly average for the adult forms is 9.83 percent,which with the caterpillars makes a total percentage of 30.49."Hemiptera (bugs) , including stink bugs and scale insects, are preyedupon regularly at all seasons. Beetles of all kinds make up 12.78percent of the total food ; these include the leaf-eating forms, weevils,ladybirds, scarabs, and the wood-boring beetles, all but the ladybirdsbeing injurious. Hjnnenoptera and Diptera together amount to 11.64percent, including wasps, bees, ichneumons, and flies. Grasshoppersmake up 13.25 percent of the annual food, other insects 3.74 percent,spiders 3.59 percent, and other animal food, including snails and thebones of a small chameleon, 0.37 percent. "In the spring and fall months foraging for suitable food compelsthe birds to turn to the berries and small fruits, which are Usually tobe had in almost any locality. In January 22.93 percent of the entirefood is vegetable, in February only 5.62, still less from March to July,in August 16.2, and in the next two months the percentage rises to32.37. The vegetable food is composed of such berries as those ofsumac, dogwood, wild grape, and wax myrtle, and has no economicimportance."Behavior.?Mr. Saunders (1915) expresses it very well when hesays that the white-eyed vireo, when its nest is approached, "is oneof the most fearless birds that we have. Perhaps I might have writtenone of the tamest birds, for that is the way many people would ex-press it. But the bird does not show the confiding familiarity withman that such birds as the Chickadee and Chipping Sparrow showand thus could not properly be called tame. It keeps away from man,seeking out the wildest tangle of green-brier thickets for its habitatand nest. It is only when man seeks it out, and finds the secret of itsnest that it becomes at all 'tame,' and such tameness is better calledfearlessness." WHITE-EYED VIREO 233In spite of its bravery on its nest, it is at other times most restless,shy, and retiring ; we often hear it singing in the depths of its shadyretreats, but it seldom shows itself or mounts to some open perch tosing; and, if we try to enter its haunts to catch a glimpse of it, itpromptly fades away and we hear its voice from some more distantpoint.Dr. Chapman (1912) remarks: "If birds are ever impertinent, Ibelieve this term might with truth be applied to that most original,independent dweller in thickety undergrowths, the White-eyed Vireo.Both his voice and manner say that he doesn't in the least care whatyou think of him ; and, if attracted by his peculiar notes or actions,you pause near his haunts, he jerks out an abrupt 'Who are you, eh?'in a way that plainly indicates that your presence can be dispensedwith. If this is insufficient, he follows it by a harsh scolding, andone can fancy that in his singular white eye there is an unmistakablegleam of disapproval."This display of an irritable temperament is most pronounced whenits nesting haunts are invaded ; tlien it is that it shows its petulance andirascibility by skipping about and scolding in a state of great excite-ment. But at other times it may behave quite differently, showingdecided traits of curiosity and inquisitiveness, a desire shown by someother birds to investigate more closely any stranger within its haunts.At such times if we sit, quietly, and partially concealed in its homethicket, it will approach stealthily, hopping from one low twig toanother and looking us over, coming silently to within a few feet ofus. It is an interesting bird of strongly marked characteristics.Voice.?Aretas A. Saunders contributes the following full accountof the striking song of this species: "The song of the white-eyedvireo differs markedly, not only from other vireos, but from all otherbirds. It consists of three to nine (commonly five to seven) distinctnotes, some short but emphatic, others longer and strongly accented,some slurred or otherwise connected, and others separated from allother notes by short pauses. Phonetic sounds are common in thesong and stand out distinctly. Songs are likely to begin and endwith a short emphatic note like chick or tick, but not all do this.Most songs contain a loud, accented tohee, or a slurred wheeyo or wayo.Examples would be: Chick! ticha wheeyo chick!; chick tick wheeechiclcero chick!; chicli whdy! chick wayo! tick to! tickata ydd tick! ; and there are many others."Each individual has several songs and commonly sings one overand over a dozen times or so and then changes to another. Tliegreatest number of different songs I have recorded as definitely fromone individual is four, but I believe they have more variations thanthis. The difficulty lies in positively identifying the same individualfrom day to day. They wander about and are not always singing843290?50 IG 234 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMin the same locality from day to day, and in spite of the great varia-tion in the song, two different individuals often sing the same song. "I have 105 records of the song, but two are duplicates of others,so that the collection contains 103 different songs. It seems quiteprobable that many more than this could be recorded. In a numberof my records I have recorded the fact that two different birds sangthe particular song. "The pitch of the song varies from D"" to F#", two tones less thantwo octaves, but the greatest range of one individual is 5l^ tones, halfa tone less than one octave. The greatest range in any single song isfour and a half tones, from A"' to C"\ "The song period begins with the arrival of the bird in the springand continues to early August, my average last date being August 8.But I have but four years of records, having been out of the breedingrange of the species many summers. The song is revived after themolt, in late August or September, vay dates varying from August30, 1917, to September 20, 1907, and the last song averaging Septem-ber 9. I have records at this season for ten years, but in a good manyyears have heard no singing at this season."Francis H. Allen gives me a record of what he considered "to bea somewhat unusual song, heard in Dover, Mass., in 1903 ? chip-dd-chip-a-ivheeoo-chip, the second syllable nasal and 'catty'. I used to bein the habit of rendering the song as pip-i-tweeo, who-are-you. Be-sides the regular and distinctive song, the white-eyed vireo some-times gives various catbirdlike or chatlike chips, chucks, and mewsthat seem to form a part of the song performance."An almost countless number of various renderings of the songs ofthis versatile performer, mostly more or less similar to those men-tioned above, have been written by other observers. Som.e have ]outthem into words, such as the following from Robert Ridgway (1889) : "In Bermuda they are interpreted as 'gingerheer, ?quick,'' while inIllinois the writer has heard them translated by boys into 'chicVty-heaver, ?Ihn'her, stick, with special emphasis on the first syllable ofeach word." Both of these seem to be very expressive.The white-eyed vireo has quite a reputation as a mimic, but whetherthe fancied imitations are really copied from other birds, or whetherthey are only demonstrations of the bird's own talents as an accom-plished vocalist, is open to question. We may hear such a volumeof varied songs coming from the hidden depths of some dense thicket,that it would seem as if many kinds of birds were competing in chorus.Ralph Hoffmann (1901) has "heard it give i\\Q chip-churr of the Tan-ager and the dick-you of the Chewink." Mr. Forbush (1929) gives itcredit for "fairly good fragmentary imitations of songs or notes ofthe Song Sparrow, Robin, Flicker, Catbird, House Wren, Goldfinch,Whip-poor-will, Yellow-breasted Chat, House Sparrow, Towhee, WHITE-EYED VIREO 235Carolina Wren, Warbling Vireo, Summer Tanager, Wood Thrush andothers, and although its imitations are not as accurate as those of theMockingbird, or even as those of the Starling, they are easily recog-nizable." The notes of the catbird and the chat are so well imitatedthat, as all these birds live in similar thickets, it is easy for the listenerto be deceived. Bradford Torrey (1904) recognized the notes ofthe crested flycatcher mingled "with its song.Field marks.?The white-eyed vireo is a small, very active vireo,bright olive-green above and tinged with yellow on the sides of itswhite underparts ; tlie space in front of and around the eye is yellow,these being white in the larger blue-headed vireo; but the best fieldmark is the very conspicuous white iris ; and its song is unmistakable.DISTRIBUTIONRange.?Eastern United States and southeastern Canada to Guate-mala and Honduras.Breeding range?The North American races of the white-eyed vireobreed north to southeastern Nebraska (Vesta and Falls City; possiblyHomer) ; southern Iovv\a (Council Bluffs, Grinnell, and Coralville) ;southern Wisconsin, rarely (Lake Koshkonong; occurrences have beenreported from Madison, New London, and Milwaukee) ; southernMichigan, probably (Kalamazoo, Ann Arbor, and Detroit) ; south-western Ontario (London, Woodstock, and Toronto) ; central NewYork (Rockport, Ballston Spa, and Troy) ; southern Vermont (Ben-nington, possibly farther north) ; southern New Hampshire ( Jaffrey,Manchester, and Boscawen) ; southeastern Maine, probably (recordedfrom South Harpswell) ; arid Gaspe County, Quebec (one record;L'Anse Pleureuse). East to Gaspe County, Quebec (L'Anse Pleu-reuse) ; New Brunswick (Fredericton and St. John, probably) ; south-eastern Maine (South Harpswell) ; Massachusetts (Boston and WoodsHole) ; and the Atlantic Coast States, south to southern Florida(Miami, Key Largo, and Key West). South to southern Florida(Key West) ; the Gulf coast to southern Texas ( Brownsville) ; andnortheastern Mexico (Matamoros and Gomez Farias, Tamaulipas ; andMatlapa, San Luis Potosi). V/est to San Luis Potosi (Matlapa) ;southeastern Coahuila (Saltillo) ; western Nuevo Leon (Monterrey) ;central Texas (Rio Grande City, Kerrville, Mason, and Henrietta) ;central to northeastern Oklahoma (Fort Eeno and Copan) ; easternKansas (Neosho Falls, Lawrence, and Manhattan; a casual recordin Ellis County) ; and eastern Nebraska (Vesta and Homer, and hasoccurred west to Kearney).Winter range.?The white-eyed vireo is found in winter north tosouthern Texas (San Antonio and Cove) ; southern Louisiana (AveryIsland, Thibadeau, and Baton Rouge) ; southern Mississippi (Ed- 236 BULLETIN 197, UlSriTED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMwards and Biloxi) ; southern Georgia (Thomasville, Tifton, andSavannah) ; and southeastern South Carolina (Charleston). Eastto southeastern South Carolina (Charleston) ; Florida (DaytonaBeach, St. Lucie, Miami, and Key Largo) ; western Cuba, rarely(Habana and Isle of Pines) ; and the Swan Islands (Caribbean Sea).South to the Swan Islands; northern Honduras (Tela) ; and centralGuatemala (Bananera and Coban). West to Guatemala (Coban) ;Oaxaca (Chivela) ; western Veracruz (Orizaba) ; Puebla (Metlalto-yuca) ; Hidalgo (Jacala) ; eastern San Luis Potosi (Angostura) ;western Nuevo Leon (Monterrey) ; and southern Texas (Mission andSan Antonio) . Resident in Bermuda.The ranges as outlined include all the North American races of thewhite-eyed vireo of which there are five. The typical race, the south-ern white-eyed vireo (F. g. gt^seus) , breeds on the Coastal Plain fromeastern Texas to northern Florida and along the Atlantic coast north-ward to northeastern North Carolina ; the northern white-eyed vireo(F. g. noveboracensis) breeds from east-central Texas to westernNorth Carolina and Virginia, northward. The Key West vireo(F. g. maynardi) breeds in southern Florida from the Florida Keysnorthward to Tarpon Springs and Anastasia Island ; the Rio Grandevireo (F. g. micrus) breeds from the Rio Grande Valley of Texassouthward to Nuevo Leon and San Luis Potosi, Mexico; and the Ber-muda vireo (F. g. hermudianus) is resident in Bermuda. Other racesoccur in Mexico, Central America, and the West Indies.Migration.?The latest date of spring departure from Habana,Cuba, is April 10.Early dates of spring arrival are: South Carolina?Columbia,March 1. North Carolina?Charlotte, March 13. Virginia?Law-renceville, April 4. District of Columbia, Washington, April 10.Pennsylvania?State College, April 29. New York?Collins, April27. Arkansas?Helena, March 18. Tennessee?Nashville, March 31.Kentucky?Eubank, April 7. Ohio?Columbus, April 17. In-diana?Terre Haute, April 18. Texas?Somerset, March 7. Okla-homa?Caddo, March 25. Kansas?Wichita, April 20. Nebraska ? Omaha, May 9.Late dates of fall departure are : Nebraska?Kearney, October 20.Kansas?Onaga, September 15. Oklahoma?Copan, September 18.Texas?Victoria, November 6. ^lissouri?Columbia, October 6.Arkansas?Delight, October 10. Louisiana?Monroe, October 15.Illinois?De Kalb, October 3. Indiana?Indianapolis, October 5.Ohio?Austinburg, October 3. Kentucky?Versailles, October 12.Tennessee?Athens, October 10. Alabama?Wheeler Dam, October22. New York?Rhinebeck, September 30. Pennsylvania?Jeffer-sonville, October 12. District of Columbia?Washington, October 28.Virginia?Sweet Briar, October 31. North Carolina?Henderson- KEY WEST VIREO 237 ville, October 18. South Carolina?Clemson College, October 29.Georgia?Macon, November 12.Dates of fall arrival are : Cuba?Habana, October 2. Guatemala ? La Libcrtad, November 10.Casual records.?Coues (1874, p. 100) records a specimen, withoutdate, taken "on the upper Missouri" by F. V. Kayden. From the ac-count of the exploring expeditions it seems probable that this speci-men was collected in 1874 in South Dakota. Several individuals arereported to have landed on a steamer in Lake Huron, October 9, 1939,about 50 miles south of Detour, Mich. A specimen was collected onAugust 24, 1933, at Cyanthanis, Cochise County, Ariz., about 15 mileseast of Pearce. A specimen was collected on April 14, 1909, atStaniard Creek, Andros Island, Bahamas.Egg dates.?Connecticut : 22 records. May 17 to June 13 ; 16 records.May 30 to June 10.Florida: 16 records, April 18 to July 9; 8 records, May 4 to 31,indicating the height of the season.Georgia : 28 records, March 22 to June 13 ; 14 records, May 7 to 30.Texas: 29 records, April 1 to June 14; 15 records. May 14 to 29.VIREO GRISEUS MAYNARDI BrewsterKEY WEST VIREOHABITSThe 1931 Check-list and Howell's "Florida Bird Life" (1932) bothimply that this subspecies is confined to the Florida keys, where itseems to be a resident, but Holt and Sutton (1926) record it as breed-ing in extreme southern Florida. And Mr. Eidgway (1904) extendsits range northward on the coast of Florida as far as Tarpon Springsand Anastasia Island; he says, in a footnote, that these specimensfrom the more northern points are not typical of maynardi^ but nearerto that than to the more northern form.Mr. Brewster (1887) in naming this race, describes it as "in sizeand proportions similar to V. crassii'ostris., the bill equally large andstout. Coloring more like that of V. novehoracensis but grayer above,the yellow beneath paler (but of the same greenish or lemon tinge)and equally, if not more, restricted." In other words, the Key Westvireo differs from our common white-eyed vireo of the north in havinga longer and stouter bill, grayer upper parts, and more restricted,paler yellow sides. The most typical birds are found in the Floridakeys and birds in progressive stages of intergradation occur north-ward.Alexander Sprunt, Jr., who has spent much time on the keys andelsewhere in southern Florida, has sent me the following notes on it : 238 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM "Found to be common on most of the keys from Key Largo to KeyWest. On some of them it is about the only land bird in evidence,except doves and mockingbirds, for hours on end. Its note is almostconstant, and the song is heard in any of the winter months. Heardone on Lower Matecumbe, March 3, 1932, which was singing asenthusiastically as though nesting. Frequents the red mangrove{Rhizifhora mangle^ and occurs on the smaller keys of Florida Bay,notably Bottlepoint, Low, Manatee, and the Tern Keys. Foundrather sparingly about Cape Sable, in my experience, though at EastCape Canal at times they are to be noted by reason of the call notesand song. Here, as in the keys, it is partial to the red mangrove. Ofcourse, on some keys there is no other growth. Have not observedit north of Little Shark River above Whitewater Bay, though it maystray up the west coast for some distance. Very tame as a rule, notnoticing an observer only a few feet away. I could notice no markedvariation from habits of F. griseus, indeed it seemed almost identicalin every way, except at times the larger bill was apparent. Heardand seen casually, it was a white-eyed vireo and no more."Nesting.?While walking through a hammock, 3 miles west of Fla-mingo, near the southern tij) of Florida, with Guy Bradley, the war-den who later gave his life in the cause of bird protection, I un-expectedly came upon a nest of this vireo on April 28, 1903. It hungdirectly in our path, suspended 3 feet above the ground from theslanting twigs of a "salt bush" that overhung the narrow path; thisis a peculiar, slender, thorny shrub, which Guy said has red berrieson it in the fall. The nest was beautifully made of strips of innerbark, soft vegetable fibers, skeletons of leaves, plant down, mosses,lichens, spiders' nests, etc., and was lined with fine grasses and Vsnealichen. It held three eggs well advanced in incubation. I shot theparent bird and later identified it as this subspecies.Holt and Sutton (1926) say: "Mr. Semple has sent the CarnegieMuseum a beautiful nest with two eggs which he found, April 23,twenty-five miles south of Cocoiuit Grove. He closely observed theparents many times, and waited several days to make sure that twoeggs constituted the complete set. The nest is two inches deep andabout three inches in diameter outside, and one and one-half by twoand one-half inches inside. It is thinly but securely bound byspider-webs and lined entirely with fijie shreds of palm-fiber, andwas placed at the tip of a branch of a large bayberry bush."There is a nest and four eggs of the Key West vireo in the Thayercollection in Cambridge, taken at Key West on May 29, 1890. It wassuspended from the fork of a small twig on a "low, bushy tree"; itis a bulky nest and deeply hollowed, measuring three inches in diameterby three inches in depth outside; the inner diameter at the top isonly one and one-half inches, but the top is much overhung, so that BERMUDA VIREO 239 it is wider below; the imier cup is nearly two inches deep. It isthick-walled and made of various plant fibers, palmetto shreds, coarsemosses and lichens, strips of inner bark, many dead and bleachedleaves, and some wool and spider nests, all bound with very finefibers and spider silk; it is lined with very fine grasses.There are three nests of this vireo, containing three or four eggseach, in the Doe collection in the University of Florida, all of whichcame from Key West. One was collected by J. W. Atkins on May4, 1885, in a pendent fork of a bush, 5 feet up. The other two weretaken by Mr. Doe on June 26, 1939, and on June 18, 191:0 ; both of thesewere in myrtle bushes, 3 feet and 5 feet above the ground, respectively,one on the edge of a golf course and the other on the edge of a road-way. The latter he describes as "a beautiful pure white nest plas-tered with fine bark." He says in his notes that the nests of theKey West vireo "are the most beautiful of the species, but hard to lo-cate in the thick foliage. Key West was a paradise for birds, butnow gone, as all this country has been taken over for war purposes."Eggs.?The Key West vireo incubates two to four eggs, probablymost often three. These are similar to those of the common white-eyed vireo. What few I have seen are ovate and lusterless white,with a very few small spots and fine dots of very dark brownnear the larger end. The measurements of 26 eggs average 18.5 by13.9 millimeters ; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 19.9 by14.0, 18.17 by 14.9, and 17.5 by 13.2 millimeters.The molts, plumages, food, behavior, voice, etc., are apparently verysimilar to those of the species elsewhere.VIREO GRISEUS BERMUDIANUS Bangs and BradleeBERMUDA VIREOHABITSBangs and Bi-adlee (1901) named and described this race of thewhite-eyed vireos as follows : In genei'ul similar to Y. noveboracensis (Gmel.). Vv'ing much sliorter (thewing of V. noveboracensis often reaching 65 mm. in length) [in bermudianusit is less than 60 mm.]; tarsus longer; general coloration much grayer, lessyellow and olivaceous. The color varies much individually ; in extreme examplesthe whole upper parts are olive gray, only slightly shaded with olive green onrump and sides of interscapulum ; the supra-loral region pale grayish yellow ; wings and tail edged with olive gray ; lower surface dull grayish white, sidesand tlanks olive gray faintly tinged with dull olive green ; wing-bands pure white.The other extreme approaches more nearly to V. noveboracensis except that theback and head are always much more suffused with olive gray, and the sidesand flanks always dull olive green, not sulphur-yellow. The usual style ofcoloration is about halfway between these extreme examples. * * *The notes and song of V. bermudianus are not at all the same as those ofV. noveboracensis. The usual note is a harsh scolding or querulous mew, oftenvaried to a clear warble ? chic-hd-chic-a-cJioo-choo-iceeoo; cMc-choo-choo-weeoo- 240 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM weet, its song being surprisingly varied. It is one of the familiar birds of theislands, very tame and found everywhere, and very different in all its waysfrom its shy, retiring continental relative.It is apparently resident in Berinnda througliout the year, as theirspecimens were collected in winter.A single egg in the United States National Museum measures 18.3by 12.7 millimeters.Capt. Savile G. Reid (1884) has considerable to say about thewhite-eyed vireo of the Bermudas, from which I quote : The smallest and one of the commonest resident Bermuda birds, familiarto all through its sprightly ways, loud song, and astounding impudence. It istermed locally, "chick-of-the-village," or "chick-choo-willie," from its note. Thisis, however, very variable, and hardly any two birds give it the same rendering.One has a prefatory "chick," in addition; another tacks the extra "chick" onat the end of his version ; while others cut it short, or jumble it all up togetherat random. One particular variety is "ginger-beer-quick," a call very muchadapted to the climate of Bermuda. In short, there is no end to the varia-tions ; and a stranger might well imagine, as I did myself at first, that there wasmore than one species present. * * *It would be a waste of time and valuable space to describe the pretty pensilenest of this species, so familiar to all ornithologists. I have found it usuallyfrom 3 to 12 feet above the ground, in cedars, mangroves, Bermuda '"holly," pome-granate, and lemon trees, but most commonly in cedars. I never met with morethan three eggs or young in one nest in the islands ; authors assign four or fiveto the genus. The eggs average .71 inch by .52 inch, white, with a few dark-brown or black dots ; some are entirely white. * * * This is a sad littletorment to the collector. It comes hissing and scolding within a foot of one'shead, puffing itself out with malignant fury. I have touched one with my gunin the thick bushes before it would budge an inch. And when one is on thequi Vive for rarities among the big cedars, the little wretches will come from allparts to irritate and deceive one, playing all sorts of antics on the topmostbranches, apparently imitating the movements of a Dendroeca or otlier Sylvi-colidae, in order to induce one to waste a charge on them. Several times theysucceeded with me; and on one occasion, the bird having lodged at the top ofa very ugly-looking tree, I tore my hands and clothes to pieces in my anxietyto secure the supposed prize. But in spite of this I have a great regard forthe cheerful, restless little fellows, whose presence does so much to relievethe monotony of the everlasting cedars. They are very dexterous in catchinginsects among the foliage, their manner of feeding seeming to be intermediatebetween that of a Flycatcher and a Warbler. You can hear the "snip" of theirmandibles as they secure their prey for a considerable distance. I have seen onecatching flies off the back of a cow, jumping vigorously at them from the ground,and "snipping" them off neatly as they buzzed round the recumbent animal.VIREO GRISEUS MICRUS NelsonRIO GRANDE VIREOHABITSThe small white-eyed vireo, as we used to call it, is found in north-eastern Mexico, Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon, and San Luis Potosi. Its RIO GRANDE VIREO 241 range extends into the United States only in the Kio Grande Valleyof Texas, mainly in Cameron and Hidalgo Counties. It is thesmallest of the races of the white-eyed vireos, similar to our northernbird, but duller colored and with a paler wash of yellow on the flanks.We found the Eio Grande vireo common around Brownsville, Tex.,and discovered two nests, one on May 24 and one on May 25, 1923.The first was 5 feet from the ground, suspended from a lower branchof an ebony tree near the town ; it was a pretty nest, new but deserted ; so I took it, but it blew out of the car and was lost. On the followingday, while hunting through the dense thickets along a resaca, wefound the second nest, 3 feet up in a small bush, containing fourheavily incubated eggs; the eggs could not be saved, but the nest isnow before me. Externally it measures 2i/2 inches in diameter byabout the same in height; the internal diameter at the top is about 1%by 1% inches, and the depth of the cup is about 2 inches; the rimis somewhat incurved and is verj^ firmly attached to the supportingtwigs, being securely bound with spider webs and woolly substances;the walls of the nest are not thick, but they are very firmly woven,with dead leaves, a few green leaves, many pieces of paper from waspor hornet nests, strips of thin inner bark, lichens and spider nests, allreinforced with fine grass fibers and securely bound together withspider silk ; the lining is of very fine grasses and white hairs ; a fewrootlets and bits of wool have been worked into the body of the nest.Dr. Herbert Friedmann (1925) also found the Rio Grande vireocommon around Brownsville, of which he says : "This Vireo sings andacts just like the typical form in the northern states. Its nest is harderto find than most Vireos' because of the density of the foliage of theplaces in which it nests and also because the nests are placed towardsthe inside of the mesquite clumps instead of on out-hanging branchesas are the nests of the Red-eyed Vireo. According to Camp this birdis very commonly parasitized by the Dwarf Cowbird. Only four nestswere found, of which two were empty and the other two had three eggseach."There are four nests of the Rio Grande vireo, containing from threeto five eggs each, in the Thayer collection in Cambridge, all collectedby, or for, F. B. Armstrong in Tamaulipas, Mexico, between April 2and 11. They are mostly like my nest, as described above, but onever}^ pretty nest is made largely of lichens and mosses held in placeby some very fine twigs and bound with the usual amount of spiders'silk. The nests were placed 3 to 6 feet above the ground. The largestnest measures about 3 inches in diameter and about the same in heightexternally.The eggs are characteristic of the species. Tlie measurements of 30eggs average 18.0 by 13.6 millimeters; the eggs showing the four ex-tremes measure 19.1 by 13.7, 18.3 by 14.2, and 16.6 by 13.2 millimeters. 242 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMVIREO HUTTONI HUTTONI CassinHUTTON'S VIREOHABITSThe typical form of Hiitton's vireo inhabits the Pacific slope, fromVancouver Island southward through Washington, Oregon, andCalifornia, west of the high Sierras, to about latitude 30? in north-western Lower California. Two other races have been described fromVancouver Island and from Washington, but they are not now recog-nized on the A. O. U. Check-list.Throughout most of its range, it seems to be partial to the growthsof the evergreen oaks, where it lives at all seasons. As Clark C. VanFleet (1919) says: "One always associates the Hutton Vireo in hismind with the live oaks. I always think of this little fellow as thespirit of the live oak tree. The tree stationary, unconscious untillivened hj its spirit, in whose unfolding bosom the spirit lives anddies."Howard L. Cogswell writes to me : "This vireo is much less commonill the Los Angeles area than farther north around Santa Barbara,where it is found at all times in every small canyon or oak region. Inthe Pasadena area there are five or six oak areas on the outskirts ofthe city in each of which one or two are found regularly. I have alsoseen Hiitton's in the broader mountain canyons in sycamore, maple, andoak associations, in the tall chaparral of Griffith Park, Los Angeles,and in tlie willow regions along the lowland streams."Grinnell and Storer (1924) write : "Four species of vireos or 'green-lets' are found in different portions of the Yosemite section during thesummer months but only one, the Hutton Vireo, remains in the regionthrough the winter as well. This vireo is almost exclusively an in-habitant of the live oaks and golden oaks and this choice of habitat isdoubtless the basis for the continuance of the bird here during thewinter months. These 'evergeen' oaks furnish forage in the form ofinsects throughout the year, as is shown by the number of warblers andkinglets which resort to these trees during the colder months. TheHutton Vireo, by being restricted to this type of tree, is assured of foodin all seasons, and does not need to migrate."Ralph Hoffmann (1927) designates its habitat as "in the live oakswest of the Sierras and in j'oung firs west of the Cascades." SamuelF. Rathbun tells me that it is a resident throughout the year in west-ern Washington, and "is most often to be found in or about the densesecond growth of conifers that are of considerable size."Nestrng.?Mr. Van Fleet (1919) gives the following good accountof the nesting habits of Hutton's vireo in Sonoma County, Calif. : About the first and second weeks in March home-building is begun. Thesite being properly chosen, both birds begin the task. The round, deep-cupped HUTTON'S VIREO 243 structure is built entirely of Spanish moss, the first strands being woven onboth sides of the chosen crotch, with loose ends hanging down ; as the buildinggoes on these hanging ends are woven together at the bottom and the nestbegins to take shape. As the structure progresses the moss that goes to buildit i)ecomes finer and finer and each strand is woven in with a weaving motionof the bill. When the nest will support the weight, each bird, after it has placedthe material it has brought, pops in and works with feet and body to roundout and cup the structure.Most of the material for the nest is collected within a radius of 35 to 50 yardsof the nest, but seldom in the immediate vicinity of the site and never from thesame tree. * * * Building progresses slowly or rapidly, as the weatherpermits. I noted one pair commence and complete a nest in about foiir days ; normally a week, two, or even a greater length of time is required on accountof the frequent showers we have in March and April. Sometimes a few dayselapse between the completion of the nest and the depositing of the first egg,but usually the female commences to lay and does so daily until the settingis complete. Incubation is Ik- -un at once. * * *The nest is usually built Inick from some open or clear space. It is almostuseless to look in the first frijige of trees about the clearing; usually the nestis to be found in the second or third row of trees from the opening. The onlyexception I have ever noted was a nest in a live oak in the middle of an openpasture. Although the tree was fairly thick, the nest was deserted before anegg was laid. * * * The nest Is placed from 7 to 25 feet up, and well outat the end of a branch, usually very well concealed. As a matter of fact unlessdiscovered building, the nest is almost impossible to locate. On one occasionI discovered a nest by the fact that its occupant, presumably the male, wassinging while on the nest. I judged this to be a rather uncommon occurrence.The nest blends so well with its surroundings that sometimes, even though I haveformerly located the nest, I have had difficulty in locating it again.All his nests but one were placed in live oaks ; one "was located ina small live oak tree about seven feet from the ground. It would havebeen impossible to have seen it from any angle except directly above,unless led to it by the birds. Fronds of Spanish moss hung all aboutit, part of one frond being woven into one side of the nest. * * *An unusual nest was one located in a manzanita bush under a live oak."Though Hutton's vireo may show a preference, in California atleast, for the evergreen oaks as nesting sites, it also nests in someother trees, shrubs, or saplings. Mr. Dawson (1923) mentions a nestin a bay tree and two in willows. Grinnell and Linsdale (1936), atthe Point Lobos Reserve, found tw'o nests in ceanothus and two inJ3ines, none over 7 feet from the ground.Mrs. Wheelock (1904) says that "in the valleys and foothills ofCalifornia the Hutton Vireo builds its nest among the branches ofthe scrub oaks."Thomas D. Burleigh (1930) found two nests in western Washington,one near Kirkland and one near Tacoma, both in Douglas hrs; onewas "35 feet from the ground at the outer end of a limb of a fir,and was built entirely and compactly of light green usnea moss,lined well with fine grasses" ; the other was a similar nest and similarlylocated, 25 feet up. There is a set of eggs in my collection, taken 244 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMby Henry W. Carriger near Sonoma, Calif., that came from a nestabout 16 feet from the ground in a laurel ; it was apparently of usualconstruction, but was said to have been lined with fine grasses, a fewfeathers, and a little hair.Mr. Dawson (1923) gives the following good description of aHutton's vireo's nest: "An example before me is a three-quartersphere composed of sycamore down, and the familiar gray-greenusnea (a lichen, of course, but we all call it 'moss') lashed togetherwith cobwebs. The edges are made fast to forking twigs of live oak,and are exquisitely rounded, while a convenient twig below supportsthe bottom of the nest in graceful security. The nesting hollow, al-most as deep as it is wide, is daintily lined with the finest of driedgrasses. Its dimensions are three inches in width by two and three-quarters in depth, outside ; and two and three-eighths in width by oneand three-quarters in depth inside."Mr. Eathbun mentions in his notes a nest found by D. E. Brown,in Pierce County, Wash., that "was 6 feet above the ground and at-tached to the end of a somewhat drooping branch of a spirea."Eggs.?The Hutton's vireo's set usually consists of four eggs, some-times only three, and very rarely five. The usual shape is ovate, butsome eggs are slightly more pointed and some a little more elongated.The shell is smooth but without gloss. They are x)ure white andrather sparingly marked with a few small spots or fine dots, mostlynear the larger end, of dark or light browns, or reddish brown. Someeggs appear to be nearly spotless.The measurements of 40 eggs average 18.0 by 13.2 millimeters; theeggs showing the four extremes measure 20.0 by 14.2, 17.0 by 12.5,and 17.5 by 12.0 millimeters.Young.?My. Van Fleet (1919) writes:Incubation is performed by both parents, and it is during this period thatthey are most wary against the detection of their treasures. I have seenone bird dive into the nesting tree, make the change at the nest and the otherbird leave, so rapidly, that it seemed as though but the one bird had enteredand left the tree. * * * About two weeks after incubation is started thenestlings are hatched and by the time the month is out they are ready to taketheir first trials of flight. The nestlings are fed by both parents during theirstay in the nest. I watched four fledglings being fed for a period of about anhour; they were visited every five minutes on an average during this period.The nestlings were partially covered with feathers at the time and were keep-ing the parents very busy filling their hungry mouths.Mrs. Whcelock (1904) says that the young "are fed by regurgitationfor five days and, after that, the food is usually reduced to pulp beforebeing given to them. It consists almost entirely of small tree-worms,green and white, the latter sometimes seeming, by their whiteness, tobe fruit worms. The intervals between feeding are unusually short,ranging from three minutes to half an hour." HUTTON'S VIEEO 245Plumages.?According to Kidgway (1904) young Hutton's vireos,in Juvenal plumage, are "similar to adults, but much grayer oliveabove, under jDarts much paler (chin, throat, and chest very pale olive-grayish), and auricular and suborbital regions pale as throat, etc.,thus reducing contrast with pale orbital ring and supraloral line."Young birds apparently have a partial postjuvenal molt, mainlyin August, which involves the contour plumage and the wing covertsbut not the rest of the wings nor the tail. The first winter plumageis practically indistinguishable from that of the adult, i^dults havea complete postnuptial molt that sometimes begins at the end of Julyand may continue through September.Food.?Dr. Edward A. Chapin's (1925) report on the food of theHutton vireos is based on the study of 77 stomachs, only 70 of whichcontained enough food for use. Furthermore, none of these werecollected in March, April, INIay, or November, and so the results arenot as satisfactory as they might be. There was a preponderance ofanimal food, 98.23 percent, made up of insects and a few spiders, butnone of the small mollusks usual with other vireos. Nearly 46 percentof the food consisted of bugs (Hemiptera), nearly half of them stinkbugs. Caterpillars, moths, and butterflies made up nearly one-quarterof the total food; beetles 13.25 percent, of which 8.12 percent werethe useful ladybird beetles and 2.75 percent weevils. Other insectswere eaten in small quantities, but spiders were found in all stomachs,averaging 2.05 percent. These vireos seem to eat too many ladybirdbeetles and not enough caterpillars, to compare favorably with othervireos.Professor Beal (1907), in his earlier report, mentions among theHemiptera : "Assassin-bugs, leaf-bugs, stink-bugs, leaf-hoppers, jump-ing plant-lice, and bark scales." In the somewhat less than 2 percentof the vegetable food, he adds : "One stomach contained a few seedsof elderberries, two contained those of poison oak, and these with afew galls and some rubbish make up the whole of this part of thefood."Behavior.?Hutton's vireo is a quiet, modest, unobtrusive bird thatmust be sought for to be seen in its shady retreats, where its olive-green plumage blends so well with the foliage that it is far from con-spicuous and it is not sufficiently active to attract attention. Mr.Van Fleet (1919) describes its behavior very well as follows:The Hutton Vireo is not a bird likely to draw attention to himself. There isno fluttering of wings or hasty glances here and there for food, such as dis-tinguishes the Kinglet ; no hammering or pounding and gay chattering or scold-ing, in the manner of the Plain Titmouse. His sober mantle of olive green isnot less subdued than his movement from branch to branch, and tree to tree,his quiet peering under leaves and bark scales, where he takes toll of the teeminginsect life. Occasionally a large insect will fall his prey ; he will then stop anddiligently snip off the wings and legs before attempting to swallow it. Rarely, 246 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMhe will dive forth from the protection of the trees at a passing insect, verymuch in the manner of a flycatcher ; but on his return to the protection of thegreen foliage his flycatcher propensities desert him and he usually goes full tiltinto the cover rather than show himself longer than necessary.All observers agree that this, like most other vireos, is very tameand confiding, or rather fearless, as shown in its attachment to itsnest. It is usually necessary to lift the bird off its nest in order to seethe eggs. Mr. Dawson (1923) mentions an extreme case, in whichJ. H. Bowles, in attempting to collect a set of eggs, "had been obligedto cut away a large willow branch, and the foliage was so heavy andso one-sided that the branch had turned over in his hands, insomuchthat the Vireo's nest, which hung near the tip, was nearly upset, lack-ing nearly an eighth turn, that is, a quarter of a half, of being upsidedown. But the bird clung to the nest, and it was her presence alonewhich saved the eggs! Even when the branch was hauled in, sherequired to be removed by hand. A large experience with this bird,unfolding with the years, shows it to be, without exception, the mostconfiding species within our borders."Under the name Anthony's vireo, which is now discarded, Mr.Burleigh (1930) writes of its habits in northwestern Washington:This little Vireo may he fairly plentiful here but it is so quiet and inconspicu-ous that it is easily overlooked and may therefore be thought scarcer than itreally is. It is certainly unlike any of the other vireos with which I am familiarfor I rarely heard it utter a sound, and during the spring it oddly enough becameeven more retiring and nothing even slightly resembling a song v/as heard. Atintervals throughout the winter single birds were seen feeding in underbrushin the short stretches of woods, frequently with restless flocks of Kinglets, but Isoon realized that unless actually looked for they possibly would not have beennoticed."IMr. Kathbun watched a pair of Hutton's vireos during their nest-building activities for over an hour and witnessed a display of hostilityby the hard-working female against her less active mate ; he writes inhis notes : "During the time occupied by this work the male sat nearwhere first seen, and ceaselessly uttered his notes. As soon as thefemale had completed her work on the nest, she flew directly at hermate, attacking him, and the birds for a moment struggled together,the male seeming to be rather on the defensive ; then suddenly the fe-male flew away closely followed by her mate. These actions on thepart of both birds were repeated several times subsequently. Invari-ably, after the female finished her work on the nest, an attack on hermate would follow, the last seen being to all appearances the mostvicious, for in this instance the birds fell to the ground in theirstruggles."Voice.?If Hutton's vireo is not a brilliant singer, it is certainly apersistent one, as shown by some song records sent to me by Mr.Rathbun, who watched one singing and being answered by another HUTTON'S VIREO 247for a long- period. He says that, at a distance, tlie note "soundssomewliat lilve tcher-ree^ tlie first syllable being- quickly given but pro-longed and somewliat accented, the second with a rising inflection;and the repetition of this note or call was so rapid and so long con-tinued that I timed the bird. I found that it was repeated at the rateper minute of 61?67?62?75?25?20?57^?71?a slight intermissionand then 40, this representing a succession of minutes." Severalother somewhat similar records were made, sometimes in a higher andsometimes in a lower key, for periods of six consecutive minutes, thelast of Avhich w^as the most rapid and protracted of them all. "Fol-lowing the lapse of seven minutes, the notes again began to be givenin a slightly higher key. This record was per minute, 52?78?78 ? 71?74?73?71?63?60?71?66?15, covering a time of eleven min-utes and a few seconds. The total time of this was 675 seconds, durintrwhich the note was given 781 times, this proving a complete record orperformance, as the bird was not again heard for quite a long time.When once more heard it was some distance away. These notes weregiven with much regularity and rapidly, and at times some were ofless strength than at others, though all were clear. When quite close,the note sounds much like ser-ree. During my stay both birds werequite often heard and seemed to be calling to each other."Mr. Cogswell writes to me: "Hutton's 'song' is usually a repetitionof two notes, the second either higher or lower than the first, with theaccent on the higher note ? dice- cli^e- icceiK ivcen,icec, wee, etc., or chu~ ohu- elo.When not singing, these vireos often give a simple, light Jvip, k/p, kipcall note, and this or their song is sometimes preceded by an odd mew-ing twittering. In addition, they give a nasal grating (scolding^-note. Many times, though, a bird will sing repeatedly for as much as15 or 20 minutes, and then become completely silent for as long a periodor more."Mr. Van Fleet (1919) writes:During the fall and winter this Vireo's liquid note is seldom heard and then buta contented bar or two while feeding. But at the first breaking of winter intospring his notes become more frequent. The nuptial song is a constant repeti-tion of a single note, often for a prolonged period. It is like the twanging of abow string in one key, quid, quid, quid, repeated indefinitely. The above is notan attempt to reproduce the note, as it has more liquid quality and there is aslight cadence in it ranging higher towards the end of the note. In some in-dividuals it is given a slight trill like water over stones. The earliest I haveheard their song, if song it could be called, is in the first week of February, andit is to be heard from then on until late summer."Other published accounts of the vocal efforts of Hutton's vireo do 248 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM not differ greatly from the above descriptions, but Ralph Hoffmann(1927) adds that "it has besides a tschuk tschuk uttered in a lowinquiring tone, and a low whit whit.''''Field marks.?Hutton's vireo is a small vireo, but not the smallest ; it is smaller than Cassin's or the western warbling vireo, but largerthan the least vireo. It is the greenest of all the Pacific coast vireos.It has a prominent eye, with an incomplete white eye ring, set ina rather large round head, and has two faint white wing bars.It might easily be mistaken for a female ruby-crowned kinglet, withwhich it is often associated in winter, but it is larger, has a stouterbill, its movements are more deliberate, with less flicking of the wings,and its notes are entirely different.Enemies.?Mr. Van Fleet (1919) says that "as the nest is stronglyanchored to green wood and deeply cupped the danger of accident ordisease is reduced to a minimum. The nests are invariably so wellconcealed that a marauding jay or squirrel has little chance of discover-ing it, unless by accident. In fact I have never found but one raidednest." But the dwarf cowbird succeeds in finding it occasionally.Winter.?Hutton's vireo is resident all winter throughout prac-tically all of its breeding range, in its usual haunts among the ever-green oaks and some of the conifers, firs in the north and pines andcypresses in the south. At that season, it is often found associated withkinglets, various warblers, bushtits, chickadees, and other small birdsthat frequent such localities. It is often heard singing during thelatter part of February. DISTRIBUTIONRange.?From southwestern British Columbia to central Mexico;not definitely migratory.Breeding range.?The Hutton's vireo breeds north to southwesternBritish Columbia (San Josef, Vancouver Island; Kingcome Inlet andChilliwack, possibly) ; northwestern Washington (Bellingham andTacoma) ; western Oregon (Portland) ; through tlie interior ofCalifornia (Baird, Grass Valley, and Big Creek) ; southeastern Ari-zona (Santa Catalina Mountains, Graham Mountains, and ChiricahuaMountains) ; extreme southwestern New Mexico (Cloverdale and theAnimas Mountains) ; and southwestern Texas (Chisos Mountains).East to southwestern Texas (Chisos Mountains) ; Coahuila (DiamentePass) ; and Tamaulipas (Miquihuana) . South to Tamaulipas (Miqui-huana), Durango (EI Sal(o) ; Sinaloa (mountains south of Babizos) ;and the Cape region of Lower California (Miraflores). West toLower California (Miraflores, Victoria Mountains, San Ramon, andEnsenada) ; the coastal region of California (Escondido; Santa Cata-lina, San Rosa, and Santa Cruz Islands; Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz,Oakland, and Eureka) ; western Oregon (Grants Pass and Coos Bay) STEPHENS'S VIREO 249 western Washington (Ozette Lake) ; and Vancouver Island, BritishCokimbia (Victoria and San Josef).The range as outlined includes all the North American races of theHutton's vireo, of which four are recognized. The Vancouver vireo(F. h. insulans) is found on Vancouver Island and possibly theadjacent mainland; the typical race (F. A. huttoni) breeds west ofthe Cascades in Washington and Oregon and west of the Sierras inCalifornia to about latitude 30? in northwestern Baja California;Stephens's vireo (F. h. stephensi) breeds from soutlieastern Arizonato southwestern Texas, south to northern Nayarit and Tamaulipas;Frazar's vireo (F. h. cognatus) breeds in the Cape district of LowerCalifornia. Other races are resident in Mexico and Central America.Though there seems to be some seasonal movement of individualHutton's vireos, no definite migratory movement can be distinguished.Egg dates.?Arizona: 10 records, May 10 to June 24; 6 records,May 28 to June 9.California: 57 records, February 22 to June 20; 2-1 records, April24 to May 26, indicating the height of the season.Washington : 12 records, May 2 to June 26 ; 9 records, June 4 to 23.Lower California : 1 record. May 10.VIREO HUTTONI STEPHENSI BrewsterSTEPHENS'S VIREOHABITSThis pale southwestern subspecies is found in southern Arizona,New Mexico, central western Texas, and southward to Tamaulipasand the northern part of the Mexican Plateau during the breedingseason at least.William Brewster (1882) described this race and named it in honorof Frank Stephens, who collected and sent him a series of five speci-mens including the type. The wing of stephensi is decidedly longerthan that of typical huttoni and its coloration is much lighter andduller. In comparing the two races, he states that whereas huttoniis "olive-green above and olivaceous-yellowish beneath," with "noclear white anywhere"; stephensi is "grayish-ash above with no de-cided olive-green excepting on the rump and tail. Beneath brownish-white, untinged with yellowish excepting on the sides and crissum.Wing-bands pure white and nearly confluent."Mr. Stephens found it "not uncommon in scrub-oaks" (Brewster,1882) in the Chiricahua and Santa Eita Mountains in Arizona, andnear Fort Bayard in New Mexico, where it seemed to be confined tothe mountain ranges. Mrs. Bailey (1928) reports it in the AnimasMountains, N. Mex., from 5,800 to 8,100 feet.843290?50 17 250 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMHarry S. Swarth (1904) says of its status in another range ofArizona mountains : Possibly this species remains in the Huachucas [sic] Mountains throughoutthe winter, but I am inclined to doubt it, and if it does it must be in very lim-ited numbers. I secured a single bird as early as February 20th, but no morewere seen until March 2nd, when another was taken ; about the middle of Marchthey became more abundant, though not a common bird at any time, and soonafter the middle of the month were already in pairs. Upon their first arrivalthey were found mostly in the live oaks near the base of the mountains, but thebreeding range seems to lie between 5000 and 7500 feet. During the breedingseason these vireos were very quiet and inconspicuous, and were most easily over-looked; but after the middle of August they began to appear in considerablenumbers, and were more abundant at this time than at any other.In Brewster County, Tex., Van Tyne and Sutton (1937) "foundthe Stephens' Vireo fairly common in the Chisos Mountains aboveG400 feet." In the same mountains, Herbert Brandt (1940) heardthis vireo singing "in a canyon-floor oak grove, * * * nearlyerect on a dead limb." Based on a small series of specimens in freshplumage, he gave the birds of this region a new name, Vireo huttonicarolinae, in honor of his wife ; Dr. Oberholser had told him that they "proved much darker above and rather darker below" than typicalstephensi from farther west.Nesting.?Frank C. Willard (1908) saw a pair of Stephens's vireosbuilding a nest in "a scattering growth of oak brush" on a steep hill-side in the Huachuca Mountains, Ariz. He says : The female was evidently using some cobweb. After it was placed to hersatisfaction the mole took a turn at re-arranging it. During all the time Iwatched him he did this and several times he brought material which he in-variably dropped, none of it ever finding its way into the nest. On June 5 thefemale was sitting. She did not leave the nest until touched. * * * Thenest is a wonderful piece of bird architecture. It is composed of a frame workof fine grass holding together a thick mat of oak down almost as compact asfelt. The prongs of the fork are entirely covered with the down held on bycobwebs. There is a scanty lining of fine grass tops. As is the case withthe Plumbeous, the seeds are all removed from the grass tops used in thelining. The nest has a yellowish appearance. * * *On June 10th an intruding Jay helped me locate a nest with three well-feathered young. The nest Avas in Carr Canyon and was placed at the top ofa black oak sapling growing out of the side of the canyon. The nest was fifteenfeet from the ground and seventy-five from the bed of the canyon which is verydeep with precipitous walls. The male came with a caterpillar but seeing mewould not go to the nest. The female, however, fed the young and broodedthem without paying much attention to me. * ? *On May 22 another bird was .seen building, the nest being almost completed,apparently. June 3rd no bird was around and June 12th, when I again visitedit, the nest had entirely disappeared. Not a vestige was left. I climbed up toexamine the fork where it had been and it was cleaned off completely.Mr. Willard and I had a similar experience in 1922. On May 1we saw a pair of Stephens's vireos building a nest about G feet up in STEPHENS'S VIREO 251 a clump of oak saplings in the lower part of Ramsay Canyon intlie Huachucas. We did not go near it, for fear of frightening themaway and remembering his previous experience with these shy birds.But our caution was of no avail, for, when we visited the spot onMay 10, the nest had so completely disappeared that we could noteven find a trace of it; evidently the birds had entirely removed itafter they learned that we had discovered their secret.There are three beautiful nests of this vireo in the Thayer collec-tion in Cambridge that were taken in the Chiricahua Mountains, Ariz.The first, taken by Virgil W. Owen on May 28, 1906, was attachedto a horizontal crotch in the topmost branches of an ash tree on thebank of a mountain stream, 16 feet above the water and well-con-cealed in the new foliage. The second was also taken by Mr. Owen,on June 2, 1906 ; it was "18 feet up and near the top of a slender oliveoak tree which was growing near a stream" ; it is suspended betweensmall twigs close to a vertical branch and was apparently well shadedby a spray of leaves just above it, which are still attached to thebranch; this is the largest of the three nests, measuring externally 3by 21/^ inches in diameter and nearly 3 inches in height ; the internaldiameter at the top is about li/o inches, but it is much wider within, asthe rim is much incurved ; the inner cup is nearly 2 inches deep. Thethird nest, taken by H. H. Kimball on June 24, 1908, was 15 feet fromthe ground, attached to some small twigs under a crotch of a syca-more limb. All these nests were more or less well-concealed in thefoliage, much of which came with the nests.The nests are all alike in general appearance, looking like cup-shaped, yelloAvish-buff sponges, quite different from any vireos' neststhat I have ever seen. At first glance they appear to be made en-tirely of this yellowish-buff down, so completely and profusely arethey covered with it, even enclosing the supporting twigs ; the downprobably was gathered from oaks, but perhaps from sycamores. But,on close inspection, it appears that this material is strongly reinforcedwith fine grasses, lichens, and a few green leaves, the whole beingfirmly bound together with spider silk. The lining consists of veryfine yellow grass tops. Altogether, they are works of art.In the Chisos Mountains in Texas, Van Tyne and Sutton (1937)saw a pair of Stephens's vireos building a nest that "was swung froma clump of mistletoe which grew in an oak, and was about twelve feetfrom the ground."There is a set of three eggs in my collection, taken by Frank B.Armstrong in Tamaulipas, Mexico, on April 18, 1908, from a "nest offine hay, hair, bark, cobwebs and lichens, suspended from a limb 4feet high in a thicket."Eggs.?The usual set for Stephens's vireo is three or four eggs, per- 252 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMhaps rarely five. They seem to be indistinguishable from those ofHutton's vireo. Those that I have seen are sparingly marked withvery dark brown or blackish, but others have mentioned markings inlighter shades of brown. The measurements of 25 eggs average 18.1by 13.6 millimeters ; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 19.5by 13.6, 17.5 by 14.5, 16.9 by 13.6, and 18.2 by 13.2 millimeters.Plumages.?The molts and plumages are apparently in the samesequence as those of the species elsewhere. Van Tyne and Sutton(1937) say that a male in juvenal plumage, collected on July 18, "is paler and browner above than the adult, with broad edgings ofbright yellowish green on the outer webs of the flight feathers. Thethroat is much like that of the adult, but the belly is whiter in thecenter and more buffy on the sides." Mr. Swarth (1904) says:Specimens taken the middle of Augnst are in the midst of the moult, but somesecured the first week in September have nearly completed the change. Birdstaken at this time are generally rather darker and more olivaceous than springspecimens, vpith more greenish-yellow on the edges of the wing and tail feathers.Aside from these seasonal differences the series of specimens I secured here showsvery little variation in color, and I took none which approach huttoni very closely ; but I have a male specimen of huttoni taken at Los Angeles on December 6th,1898, which is almost indistinguishable from autumnal examples of stcpheiiM;being quite as pale in coloration, but having rather more greenish-yellow streak-ings on the sides and flanks than is the case with that race. The bill is also ofthe larger size which distinguishes the coast race.VIREO HUTTONI COGNATUS KidgwayFRAZAR'S VIREOHABITSThis is another pale race that is resident in the Cape San Lucasdistrict of Lower California. Mr. Ridgway (1904) describes it as "similar to V. h. stephensi, but wing averaging decidedly shorter, tar-sus longer, and coloration paler. Adults with olive-gray of upperparts slightly paler and greenish olive of rump and upper tail-covertsmuch less pronounced, under parts whiter, the chest, etc; much lessstrongly tinged with olive-buff. Young with under tail-coverts, analregion and lower abdomen much less strongly tinged with buff."William Brewster (1902) remarks that "Lower California speci-mens of Stephens's Vireo have larger bills than those from Arizona,but I can discover no other differences." His specimens were col-lected by M. Abbott Frazar, for whom the subspecies was named. Hesays of its haunts : Mr. Belding, who was the first to detect Stephens's Vireo in Lower California,gives it in his list of mountain birds as "common above 3,000 feet altitude," but "not observed below this." Mr. Frazar found it numerous among the pines onthe Sierra de la Laguna in May and early June, but none of the specimens killedthere showed any signs of breeding. He also met with it at San Jos6 del Rancho BELL'S VIREO 253in July, although not in any numbers. During his second visit to La Laguna,the last week of November, two birds were shot and several others seen on thevery summit of this mountain, and a few days later (on December 2) a singlespecimen was taken at Triunfo, indicating that at least a few individuals winterin the Cape Region, to the northward of which, on the Peninsula, this Vireo hasnot yet been noted.Nesting.?Not much is known about the nesting habits of Frazar'svireo. J. Stuart Rowley seems to be tlie only one that has seen itsnest. He says in his notes: "On May 10, 1933, on the sierra aboveMiraflores, while I was eating lunch in the shade of some trees, a dullgreen bird flaslied before me and without a sound fleAV directly to anest not 20 feet from me and started brooding. All that was visiblefrom where I sat was the basket nest with a large black eye peeringover the edge at me and watching my every move. Upon approach-ing, the female silently flushed from the three eggs, which were slightlyincubated. This was the only nest of this species I found; in fact,it was the only instance of observing these birds which I had through-out the whole Cape region."In response to my request for further information, Mr. Kowleywrites to me : "Not being a botanist, I am not certain as to the speciesof trees in the area where this nest was located, but the prevailing coverhere was oak, a small, scrubby form, and it was in this type of treethat the vireo nest was located. The surroundings were typical Sierrade la Laguna canyon country, being dry, rather steeply sloping coun-try, full of flora which has thorns and continually raises the very devilwith one's clothes. The nest itself was made of small fibres and softdowny material, with a predominant covering of a local lichen, abun-dant in the oaks, so that the nest was cleverly and well concealedamong the leaves."Charles E. Doe, who now has this set of eggs, probably with theoriginal data, tells me that the nest was pendent in the fork of a low,thorny oak, about 4 feet from the ground ; it measured 3 inches acrossthe top and was 2 inches deep. He describes the eggs as "pure, dullwhite, faintly dotted at the larger end with almost black, brown dots."They measure 0.78 by 0.55, 0.76 by 0.54-, and 0.72 by 0.56 inch, or19.7 by 14.0, 19.3 by 13.7, and 18.3 by 14.3 millimeters.VIREO BELLI BELLI AudubonBELL'S VIREOHABITSAudubon (1844) discovered this species on his Missouri River expe-dition and named it in honor of his companion J. G. Bell, who pro-cured the type specimen on the same day that Harris's sparrow wasdiscovered, May 4, 1843. He says of its haunts : "This species, like 254 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM other Vireos of the smaller class, is usually found in the bottom landsalong the shores of the Upper Missouri river, from the neighbour-hood of the Black Snake Hills as far as we went up that river ; findingit in many instances, whether in the bottom lands, overgrown with lowshrubbery, or along the borders of ravines that discharge the wateraccumulating during the spring meltings of the snows that cover theupper country prairie land."The species, Vireo belli, is widely distributed over the westernUnited States and northern Mexico, but the type race is found onlyeast of the Rocky Mountains, from southern South Dakota, northernIllinois, and northeastern Indiana to eastern Texas and Tamaulipas.Like the white-eyed vireo. Bell's is a denizen of low dense thickets,preferably along the banks of a river or some small stream. Wlierethe ranges of the two species overlap, they are often found in similarhaunts or in the same thickets. Bell's vireo seems to show a preferencefor thickets of wild plum or small, densely leaved plum trees. Butit is also often found in thickets of hazel bushes, alders, haws, willows,or dogwoods, specially those that are overgrown with a tangle ofwild grapevines.In Texas, according to George F. Simmons (1925), its habitats are:"Mesquite flats and mesquite prairie forests ; tangled brush and brierpatches in open country; mesquite thickets bordering open prairie orcotton fields ; lines of bushes and trees along country roads and fencerows between cultivated fields; brush fringing woods or roadsides;osage-orange or bois-d'arc hedges ; orchards ; plum thickets on prairieor on country hillside."Spring.?Of the spring migration in Central America, Dickey andvan Rossem (1938) write: "From April 5 to 9, 1927 a marked waveof this species was migrating through the beach scrub and moreopen parts of the woodland at Barra de Santiago. As the maleswere then in full song, they were naturally more conspicuous thanwould otherwise have been the case. Even so, it was obvious thatlarge numbers were passing through, and in the low growth along thepeninsula as many as a dozen birds were in sight or sound at one time.The evidence of a fall and spring migration in El Salvador, withoutthe detection of a single winter visitant, argues that some individuals,at least, winter considerably to the southward."Nesting.?Harold M. Holland, of Galesburg, 111., writes to me:"During the i:>ast 40 years or so, upward of a hundred nests of Bell'svireo have been examined by me in this west-central Illinois locality.None of these has contained more than four vireo eggs, which is thenormal complement. Fresh eggs have been noted from May 25 toJune 15. The characteristic and unmistakable song, when heardin proper season where surroundings offer a favorable site, is indica-tion usually of a nest near at hand. BELL'S VIREO 255 "Forbush, in the 'Birds of Massachusetts' [vol. 3] states that the nestis 'lined with soft substances, such as down or hair,' and others havementioned down and hair. Linings of the nests observed by me couldnot be even remotely regarded as of soft substances. While occasion-ally a horsehair may have been worked into the lining, neither plantdown, poplar, nor willow 'cotton', nor similar materials, though ofteneasily available, have been included. "Typical nests of this locality may be described as composed exte-riorly of soft, grayish plant strips and shreds, fibers, leaf fragments,and small pieces of bark, neatly lined almost invariably with fine,brownish grass stems. The exterior, especially at the rim, as well asthe lining, may be supplemented by spider web and cocoons."Two nests before me provide fair examples of measurements: (1)exterior diameter, 2% by 3 inches ; interior diameter, li/o by 1% inches;exterior depth, 3% inches; interior depth, 11/2 inches. (2) exterior di-ameter, 3 inches ; interior diameter, 1% by 1% inches ; exterior depth, 3inches; interior depth, li/4 to 1% inches."Many years ago, A. Dawes Du Bois sent me some notes on Bell'svireo. On June 5, 1913, he watched a pair of these vireos near Lincoln,111., "in a raspberry patch adjoining an orchard and thus located theirnest, which was fastened to a raspberry stalk about 2 feet from theground. The little twig, which had formed one prong of the forkin which the nest was originally built, had broken loose so that thenest hung from one side only, and the four eggs were not very securein a wind. Beneath the nest on the ground was the empty shell ofa fresh cowbird's egg, about one third of it, at the large end, brokenaway as if by the bill of a bird. I suspect that the vireos had thrownit out." He took this nest and the eggs, but the birds built anothernest and raised a brood in the same raspberry patch; they had fullygrown young on July 21.Some years later, Mr. Du Bois (1940) published an account of thisand two other nests, which he found near Springfield, 111., in 1922and 1923. One of these "was two and a half feet from the ground,in a haw bush at the edge of a brier patch." It "was composed ofbark shreds, plant fibers, numerous thin, paperlike dried leaves, andsome bits of newspaper; lined with fine grass stems and a very fewcoarse hairs." One of the others "was three feet from the ground,exceedingly well hidden, in a bushy wild crab, in a narrow but densethicket." It was similar in construction.Pitelka and Koestner (1942) made a study of five nests of Bell'svireo in central Illinois. "These consisted of three attempts at nest-ing and a fourth successful nesting of one pair together with onesuccessful nesting of a second pair. Nest building lasted 4 to 5days. * * * Cowbird interference was probably the cause of de-sertion of the first two, and possibly three, nests of one pair. At each 256 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM of these nests, desertion occurred after removal of one host egg. Nestbuilding was done by the female."In 1926 ]Mrs. Nice (1929) followed the fortunes of a pair of Bell'svireos for two months on the campus of the University of Oklahoma ; they built three nests, all of which were destroyed by a cat, in onecase after the young had hatched and in the other two cases whilethere were eggs in the nests. The first nest was in a honeysuckle bush,15 inches from the ground; it "was largely made of birch bark (froman introduced tree near-by) ; spider webs, cocoons and bark fibres wereon the outside, while fine pieces of peppergrass stems and horse hairserved as lining." This nest was destroyed on June 3 or 4, and by the14th the birds had built a new nest and laid four eggs; this secondnest was 75 yards away, three feet from the ground, in a hydrangeabush in a row of bushes. On June 25, this nest had been torn out.The next day she "discovered that the foolish little birds had returnedto their first bush and had started a nest three feet from the ground."On July 2, the first egg had been laid, but a similar disaster befellthis third attempt three days later.In Texas, Mr. Simmons (1925) records nests as placed from "1.12to 10, once 25, average 3, feet from ground." He says that the nest is "nearly always in a low mesquite tree; occasionally in cedar elm,winged elm, Texas black-fruited persimmon, Mississippi hackberry;black willow, prickly ash ; honey locust, or bois d'arc bush." He addsthe following to the usual materials employed: "Bits of wool; rarely,tiny bits of twigs, rootlets, Indian tobacco weed, feathers, cast-offsnake-skin, string, lichens, moss, bits of cotton, rags, and pieces ofwasp nest. * * * Occasionally nests have false bottoms built overeggs of the Dwarf Cowbird, the birds preferring a second story tobuilding a new home."In addition to the above-mentioned situations, nests have been re-corded in Cottonwood, dogwood, and apple trees, in lilac, osage-orange and hazel bushes ; and doubtless other kinds of trees and bushesare used as nesting sites; most of the nests have been less than 5feet above ground, much less on the average.Two very unusual nests are worth mentioning. George W. Morse,of Tulsa, Okla. (1927), reports a double nest, the second having beenbuilt two-thirds of the way around the first and containing two eggswhile the young were still in the first nest and nearly ready to fly;the second nest later contained four eggs, when he collected it. Baird,Brewer, and Ridgway (1874) report a nest, taken by B. F. Goss, nearNeosho Falls, Kans., which, "unlike others of this family, is lined withdown, and the fine long hair of some animals, instead of with vegetablestems." With the exception of a similar statement by Forbush(1929), probably based on the same authority, I can find no mention BELL'S VIREO 257of such a lining in all the many references to this species in theliterature.Eggs.?Bell's vireo lays three to five eggs to a set, but four seems tobe the commonest number. Those that I have seen are ovate, orsomewhat pointed ovate, and lusterless white, with a few fine dotsof dark brown or blackish, scattered mainly about the larger ends.Others have reported spots of lighter brow^n or reddish brown. Someeggs, and apparently some entire sets, are nearly or quite spotless.Rarely, an egg is more heavily spotted. The measurements of 50eggs average 17.4 by 12.6 millimeters; the eggs showing the four ex-tremes measure 18.8 by 12.7, 17.0 by 13.2, 16.5 by 11.9, and 16.8 by11.4 millimeters.Young.?All observers seem to agree that incubation normallylasts for about 14 days, and that this duty is shared by both sexes.Pitelka and Koestner (1942) found that "incubation began afterlaying of the first Qgg and lasted 14 days. Nestling life lasted 11days. * * * Both sexes participated in incubation and care ofyoung." Mrs. Nice (1929) states that in one of her nests there werefour eggs on May 15, there having been only one egg on May 12; "three of these hatched May 28, the last. May 29 ; hence, incubationmust have started with the third egg and lasted 14 days." Of thefeeding of the young, she says : The meals were brought at a rnpkl rate, once every 4.9 minutes during fiveand a half hours of watching. To be sure, some of these T.'j meals, at least fiveand perhaps a dozen, went into the female's crop, so that the young receivedfood once every five minutes on an average, or three times an hour for each littlebird. The male fed 54 times, the female 21. * * *In this fragmentary study of the home life of a pair of Bell Vireos, theenthusiasm of the male throughout the cycle was delightful to witness?hisintense interest in nest building, his exuberance while incubating, and hisdevotion to the young both in occasionally brooding them and in assuming themajor part of the task of feeding them. * * * The average duration ofbrooding was 13 minutes on the part of the female and three for the male. Bothparents ate the feces the third and fourth days and carried them away afterthat, the female disposing of seven in the five hours, the male of eight.Mr. Du Bois (1940) says that during an "hour and forty-fourminutes of watching, the young were fed seven (or possibly eight)times, mainly wath smooth caterpillars ; they were examined on fouroccasions without being fed, and were twice brooded. * * * Bothbirds stood at the fork side of the nest, on one branchlet or the other(never on the unsupported edge), to inspect or to feed." Hecontinues : The newly hatched young were of a pinkish or reddish color. When oneday old they remained entirely naked. Examination through a reading glassdisclosed no trace of down or filament on any part of the reddish flesh-coloredskin. The lining of the oral cavity was slightly yellowish, without markings.The wings were slender but relatively rather long. 258 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMAt the age of five and a half days, though the nestlings had grown muchlarger, their eyes did not appear to have opened, and they continued tobe almost naked. A narrow blackish tract had started along the anterior por-tion of the median line of the back, adjacent to the neck; edge of wing wasthickly sprouted; and there was slight indication of sprouting on crown andhind head, and in the caudal tract. Nothing on rump or posterior portion ofback. Under parts showed barely an indication of broad, extensive tractsalong the sides, these showing whitish rather than blackish. At this age oneof the nestlings demonstrated a lusty voice for so small a creature?a squeakingnoise.Plumages.?According to Eidgway (1904), the young Bell's vireoin Juvenal plumage is much like the adult, "but pileum and hindnecksoft drab, back and scapulars dark drab, under parts nearly purewhite, with sides, flanks, and under tail-coverts tinged with sulphuryellow, wing-bands more distinct, and tertials edged with yellowishwhite or pale sulphur yellow."Apparently the molts are similar to those of other closely relatedvireos, a partial postjuvenal molt in July and August, no prenuptialmolt, and a complete postnuptial molt late in summer.Food.?Dr. Edward A. Chapin's (1925) report on the summer foodof the Bell vireos, was based on the examination of 52 stomachs, col-lected from May to August, inclusive. "Nearly all (99.3 per cent)of the food taken is of animal origin, such forms as bugs, beetles,caterpillars, and grasshoppers predominating." Hemiptera (bugs)make up 34.43 percent of the summer food. Of Orthoptera, the aver-age percentage is 18.52. Dr. Chapin continues:No other species of vireo of which the food habits are known takes so largea quantity of such bulky insects as grasshoppers, locusts, and the like. Thoughthe present species is one of the smallest in size, it includes in its diet forJuly enough of the orthopteroids to make 34.88 per cent of that month'sfood. * * * About one-fifth (20.63 per cent) of the subsistence of the Bellvireos during the summer is made up of caterpillars, and of adult moths andbutterflies, and their eggs. As the last-named items are rarely found in astomach, the figures given refer mainly to the first two. * * * Beetles ofall kinds make up 15.26 per cent of the summer food of the Bell vireos. Lady-bird beetles are taken in moderate numbers and form 2.19 per cent of the totalfood. Weevils (G.OO per cent) and leafbeetles (3.98 per cent) accoimt formost of the remainder of coleopterous food. * ? * Hymeuopterans of allsorts (bees, wasps, etc.) amount to 6.44 per cent of the total diet. * * * Therest of the animal food of the Bell vireos is composed of a few miscellaneousinsects and spiders and a very few snails, spiders (2.71 per cent) being themost important. * * * It is not until July that the Bell vireos feed on wildfruits. At that time 1.57 per cent of the subsistence is of vegetable matter.In his summary, he remarks : "Grasshoppers, locusts, caterpillars,and moths are frequently injurious to man's best interests, as alsoare many of the hemipterans. The percentage of these insects in thefood of birds of this species is 73.58, nearly three-fourths of the total.Of the remainder about half the beetles and hymeuopterans are in- BELL'S VIREO 259jurious. This will add about 11 percent, leaving about 16 percent ofthe food of debatable import. As the small quantity of vegetablematter eaten is of no economic significance it may be disregarded.Ladybird beetles are about the only beneficial forms that the birdstake, and these are not consumed in very great numbers."Behavior.?Ordinarily Bell's vireo is a timid, shy, retiring littlebird, but when incubating, brooding, or feeding its young it showsconsiderable fearlessness, coming freely to the nest even in the nearpresence of an intruder ; it has somtimes been touched by the humanhand while bravely defending its eggs or young. The male is quite asdevoted as the female, and generally remains near his incubating mate,singing joyously in the same bush or in one nearby. But, at othertimes, this vireo is active and restless, disappearing into its leafyretreats on the least alarm; it jumps and flits about in the bushes sorapidly that it is difficult to catch a glimpse of it, though it may bewatching the observer from behind some sheltering foliage. Itsactions remind us of that other dweller in low shrubbery, the white-eyed vireo. It is often found in similar thickets with the white-eye,or with the black-capped vireo in Oklahoma or Texas, where theranges of these species overlap. As Pitelka and Koestner (1942)say, "individuals are seldom seen above six or seven feet in shrubbyvegetation and their flights are usually made low over openingsbetween thicket patches."Voice.?Mrs. Nice (1931) writes:There is no music in the Bell Vireo's refrain, but it possesses a quaint charmin its air of enthusiasm, in the rapid jumble of it all. It may be phrasedtvhillowhec, whillowhce, whe6; sometimes there are three whiUoiohees. Eithersong may end with a rising or falling inflection. When the bird is thoroughly inthe mood, his rate is a song every 3 seconds, but this rapid pace is seldom keptup as long as a minute, 15, 16 and 17 songs a minute being the highest numbersI have recorded, while 8 or 12 are more commonly heard. As for hour records,a nesting bird sang the following number of times: 32, 56, 57, 61, 70, 99, 131and 254. These birds seem to sing all day long and all summer long, althoughin August their zeal diminishes ; the last songs are heard from the 13th to 21stof September.Unlike most birds the male sings a great deal in the home bush ; in the 9 hoursof observation 388 songs were given there and 417 elsewhere. He even singswhile sitting on the eggs. On June 22 during a 41 minute session of incubation,the absurd little bird gave 30 songs.Elsewhere (1929) she noted, on September 6, 1925 : The Bell Vireo sings a little each morning. One day we saw him eatingberries of black alder, in the meantime singing his regular jiggledy jiggledy jee;he also had a scolding kind of song ? zip zip zip zip zip zip zee. Sometimes thiswas preliminary to the ordinary song, sometimes not. * *The scold, dice chec chee dice, is the most expressive utterances, given byboth male and female. A sputtering spee spec, heard from the male duringnest building, appeared to be a courtiug note. The juvenile call note is a single. 260 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM nasal pink. A cuckoo-like kulc JcuJc kuk kuk knk was heard August 12, and aloud unk on July 10 ; the significance of these notes is unknown.Mr. Du Bois (1940) writes: "The principal song of the first malewas a rather long continuous sentence, usually declarative, endingquite emphatically, but sometimes ending with a rising inflection asthough asking a question. The form was somewhat on the order ofa warble, but the effect was never very musical. The same bird hadan entirely different song, with loud harsh squeaks as a prominentelement?a performance difficult to describe, and certainly unique inbird music."Mr. Skinner (1925) gives somewhat similar renderings of the song,and mentions a "call, a harsh scolding, though not so harsh as similarcalls of the Wliite-eyed Vireo ; uttered as bird moves about tree andbush in search of food. In presence of intruder, a short, exceedinglyquick, scolding too-weea-skee or ter-weea-weeyPitelka and Koestner (1942) says: "On July 2, Koestner recordedan exchange of place on the nest when, as the male left, the femaleapproached and sang twice. The occurrence of female song in thisspecies was not ascertained further (although suggestive evidence hadbeen recorded on June 22 and 26) ."Field marks.?Bell's vireo has no very conspicuous field marks ; itis a plainly colored little bird in merging shades of gray and olive;it has a rather inconspicuous whitish eye ring and one or two whitishwing bars ; and its sides and breast are faintly washed with yellowish.It is mostly to be seen in the haunts of the white-eyed vireo, which hasa very conspicuous white iris, or in thickets with the black-cappedvireo, which shows a decided black cap.It is smaller than the other vireos, and its song is distinctive.Enemies.?As it builds its nest so near the ground, its young areeasy victims for the cat. Undoubtedly cats and cowbirds are itsworst enemies. Mrs. Nice (1931) reports that of 17 nests found inCleveland County, Okla., 15 were failures, 4 due to cowbirds and atleast 3 to cats. Elsewhere (1929) she says that out of nine failures,seven were due to cowbirds; but in no case was a cowbird raised.The first three attempts at nesting studied by Pitelka and Koestner(1942) were failures, probably due to interference by cowbirds. Dr.Friedmann (1929) says that Bell's vireo is a common victim of tworaces of cowbirds; he has dozens of records in his files. Roy Quillinwrote to him that the vireo "will sometimes build another layer, or,rather, add a layer of lining, and cover up the eggs of the cowbird.They must often push the foreign eggs from the nCvSt, as I have seenmany, many eggs of the cowbird on the ground under a nest of thisspecies. Yet the Bell's vireo will hatch the eggs in the majority ofcases."Other observers evidently do not quite agree with ]Mr. Quillin in his BELL'S VIREO 261last statement. The evidence seems to indicate that the vireo willusually desert the nest, if imposed upon by a cowbird. George A.Moore (1928) writes from Stillwater, Okla. : We found ten nests, all constructed in the same manner and of much the samematerial. All were located within one hundred yards of the first one found.One nest had a Cowbird egg only ; one had a vireo egg and a Cowbird egg ; onehad a vireo egg; another had two dead vireos (young) and one vireo egg thathad not hatched ; the others were empty. From all appearances the nests wereall built that season. One nest was so high in a slender bush that we could notsee into it.The incident suggests to me tlie possibility that Bell's Vireo leaves its nestwhen bothered by the Cowbird, moves over to a new site and builds a new nest.There were only the two vireos in the ravine.Harold M. Holland writes to me from Galesburg, 111. : "Cowbirdsare responsible for the abandoning of many nests, and I rather believethat the Bell's contribution toward increasing our cowbird populationmay be considered relatively small."Pitelka and Koestner (1942) write: "Both incubating adults andyoung apparently suffer infestation by the northern fowl mite, Lip-onissus sylmarum (Can. & Franz.). On July 2, the adult bird onnest No. 4 pecked and scratched its breast while on the nest. Themites were numerous on the following day wiien the young hatched.A heavier infestation was recorded at the nest of pair B, containingthree young on July 11; on July 14, two young left the nest and athird was found dead in the nest. On July 15, the rim of this nestand adjoining twigs were covered with 'thousands' of mites whichdropped to the ground in a continual little shower."Range.?Western United States south to El Salvador.DISlTtlBUnONBreeding range.?Bell's Vireo breeds north to north central andsoutheastern California (Red Bluff and the Mount Lassen region,Owens Valley, and Death Valley) ; southern Nevada (Ash Meadows) ;central Arizona (Fort Mojave, Fort Verde, Salt Eiver Wildlife Eef-uge, and the Graham Mountains) ; specimens have been collected inApril at St. George, southwestern Utah; southern New Mexico (GilaEiver and San Antonio) ; extreme eastern Colorado (Holly, Wray,and Julesburg) ; has been reported from Wyoming (Freezeout Moun-tains) ; central northern Nebraska (Thedford and Valentine) ; south-eastern South Dakota (Yankton, Sioux Falls, and Dell Rapids) ; southern Minnesota, casually (Minneapolis and Winona) ; southernWisconsin (La Crosse and Madison) ; and northeastern Illinois (Chi-cago). East to eastern Illinois (Chicago, Urbana, and Fox Prairie) ;western Tennessee (Memphis, one record) ; east-central Arkansas(Stuttgart) ; eastern Texas (Marshall, Houston, Corpus Christi, andPoint Isabel) ; and central Mexico (Jacala, Hidalgo). South to cen- ^62 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMtral Mexico (Jacala) ; central Durango (Rio Nazas) ; central Sonora(Ures) ; and northern Lower California (San Fernando). West towestern Lower California (San Fernando and San Telmo) ; and south-western and central California (San Diego, Santa Barbara, Sargent,Sacramento, Marysville, and Red Bluff).Winter range.?The winter range of the races of the Bell's vireo isdiscontinuous, but present information is inadequate to assign therange of each race. The species occurs in winter in the Cape regionof Lower California as far north as Santa Margarita Island ; in thetropical region of southern Sonora as far north as Ures and probablyin northern Sinaloa. It is found from southern Guerrero (Cogucaand Chilpancingo) through Oaxaca (Chivela and Tehuantepec) toGuatemala (Ocos, Sacapulas, and Gualam) ; and in El Salvador(Barra de Santiago and Divisadero). The species has been reportedto reach northern Nicaragua, but no records of specimens are at pres-ent available.The range as outlined includes the entire species, which has beendivided into four subspecies or geographic races. Bell's vireo, thetypical race (F. h. helli), breeds from Colorado to Illinois souththrough eastern Texas to Tamaulipas; the Texas vireo (F. h. medius)breeds from southwestern Texas to central Mexico; the Arizonavireo (F. b. arizonae) breeds from southeastern California to south-western New Mexico south to Sonora and Chihauhua ; the least vireo(F. h. pusillus) breeds in central and southwestern California southto about latitude 30? in Lower California.Migrations.?Early dates of spring arrival are : Texas?Austin,March 26. Oklahoma?Tulsa, April 15. Missouri?Concordia,April 13. Illinois?Quincy, April 18. Iowa?Ames, April 30.Kansas?Manhattan, April 22. Nebraska?Stapleton, April 24.South Dakota?Dell Rapids, April 24. Arizona?Tucson, March 21.California?Santa Barbara, March 7.Late dates of fall departure are: California?Azusa, October 3.Arizona?Tombstone, October 20. Colorado?Fort Morgan, Octo-ber 6. New Mexico?Chloride, September 20. South Dakota?Sep-tember 5. Nebraska?Red Cloud, October 1. Kansas?Onaga,September 27. Iowa?Grinnell, September 12. Missouri?Columbia,October 3. Oklahoma?Oklahoma City, October 18. Texas?Cove,October 15.Casual records.?A specimen was collected in Durham, N. H., onNovember 19, 1897 ; a specimen has been recorded as taken at Detroit,Mich., on May 26, 1885, but the original label has been lost and thecorrectness of the locality has been questioned; a specimen in fallmigration was collected on Deer Island, Miss., September 18, 1939.Egg dates.?Arizona : 35 records, April 24 to July 1 ; 18 records,April 29 to May 29, indicating the height of the season. TEXAS VIREO-ARIZONA VIREO 263Californica : 105 records, April 7 to June 27 ; 58 records, May 11 toJune 10.Illinois : 18 records, May 25 to July G; 11 records. May 25 to June 5.Kansas : 26 records. May 20 to July 1 ; 15 records, June 7 to 16.Texas : 47 records, April 25 to July 1 ; 24 records, May 13 to 29.VIREO BELLI MEDIUS OberholserTEXAS VIREOHABITSIn southwestern Texas, Presidio, Brewster, and Kinney Counties,and farther south in Mexico, we may find this subspecies.According to Kidgway (1904) it is "similar to V. h. bellii, but color-ation paler and tail averaging longer; pileum and hindneck brown-ish gray instead of grayish brown ; olive of back, etc., grayer ; underparts whiter, with olive-yellow of sides and flanks much paler; undertail-coverts and axillars white, yellowish white, or very pale sulphuryellow."Referring to Brewster County, Van Tyne and Sutton (1937) write:The vociferous Texas Vireos were common in the thick tangles of mesquiteand willow along the desert draws and about springs and cattle ponds. Occa-sionally a few were found at a distance from surface water, but they were alwaysmuch more numerous where water was available.Since the male usually sings when an intruder approaches, a fairly accurateestimate of their abundance could be made. The Texas Vireo is unquestionablyone of the most common inhabitants of the mesquite thickets of the region.On May 4, 1935, they located two nests in willow trees along theRio Grande, "one with two slightly incubated eggs, and one newlymade and ready for eggs. On May 11 we found a nest four feet fromthe ground with four young about five days old in a mesquite bush."The nesting and other habits seem to be similar to those of thespecies elsewhere. The measurements of nine eggs average 17.0 by12.7 millimeters ; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 17,5 by12.2 and 16.5 by 13.2 millimeters.VIREO BELLI ARIZONAE RidgwayARIZONA VIREOHABITSThis might be called the desert race of the species, found along theColorado River in southeastern California, in southern Arizona andsouthwestern New Mexico, and from central western Texas southwardinto Chihuahua and Sinaloa.Ridgway (1904) describes it as "similar to V. h. medius, but stillpaler and grayer, the back and scapulars brownish gray, like pileum 264 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMand hindneck, the sides and flanks faintly washed with more grayisholive-yellow; tail and tarsus decidedly longer. Young with underparts pure white, the sides, flanks and under tail-coverts tinged withpale sulphur or primrose yellow ; pileum and hindneck light pinkishgray, approaching ecru drab ; back and scapulars vinaceous-drab,"Dr. Joseph Grinnell (1914) met with the Arizona vireo at all sta-tions all the way down the Colorado River, it "being one of the mostcharacteristic avifaunal elements in the riparian strip". He saysfurther : The bird foraged in all of the component associations, but was perhaps bestrepresented in the willow association, especially where there was an under-growth of guatemote (Baccharis glutinosa).On the Arizona side above Bill Williams River, March 14, I was able to makesome observations on local distribution. Here the willow association was nai'rowbut well defined, and the vireos were closely confined to it. A singing male oc-cupied each segment of about 200 yards in this belt, just about the same spacingas the Lucy warbler in the adjacent mesquite belt. Each pair of vireos wasclosely delimited in the forage beat by that of its neighbor.Each pair in its own area actively resented encroachment by others of its ownspecies. The vireos worked a rather low zone of foliage, from the ground up toa height of six or eight feet.In Arizona, in 1922, we found this vireo only at the lower levels,in the valley of the San Pedro Eiver, where it frequented the narrowstrips of willows, small cottonwoods, and underbrush along the irri-gation ditches, and in the extensive mesquite forest near Tucson.In the former locality the willow association was full of birds, road-runners, Abert's towhees, Sonora yellow warblers, desert song spar-rows, and Sonora redwings.W. E. D. Scott (1888), however, found them "breeding throughoutthe region up to an altitude of 4000 feet. In the Catalinas theyarrive about the 25th of March and by April are common. Theyare apparently mated on arrival, and at once proceed to build nestsand lay eggs. Two broods are generally raised and three eggs arecommonly found to form the brood. They leave the Catalinas early,by September 5, but are to be found on the plains about Tucson muchlater."Nesting.?The only nest of the Arizona vireo that I collected wastaken on May 27, 1922, near Fairbank, in the San Pedro Valley. Itwas suspended 8 feet from the ground between two twigs and closeto the stem of a slender willow near one of the irrigation ditches.The nest, now before me, is a typical vireo basket, none too firmlyattached to the two twigs and made of various vegetable fibers, con-spicuous among them being split shreds of sacaton and Johnsongrasses, which grew in profusion in the surrounding fields; mixedwith these are strips of soft inner bark, finer grasses, bits of willowcotton, plant down, pappus, spider nests, etc., and considerable cattle LEAST VIREO 265hair, all firmly bound together ; the lining consists of the very finestgrass tops with a little cattle hair. It measures about 3 by 21/2inches in outside diameter and at least 2 inches in outside depth;internally it measures about 2i/4 by 1% in diameter and about 11/2inches in depth. It contained four fresh eggs, two of the vireo andtwo of the dwarf cowbird.A nest taken by Frank Stephens and sent to William Brewster(1882) was "pensile between the forks of a small mesquite branchabout five feet from the ground, in a thicket of weeds and brusk"A nest found by Dr. (xrinnell (1914) in the Colorado Valley "wasattached to the forking stalk of a guatemote five feet above theground. It would appear that many nests meet with disaster fromtheir being built, as they so often are, in openings between thickets.These openings serve as passage ways for browsing cattle, which asthey crowd through, force the supporting branches aside and de-molish the nests. Evidence of a number of instances of this type ofcatastrophe came to notice. * * * A nest found April 24 on theArizona side, five miles above Laguna, was located three and one-halffeet above the ground on a horizontal willow branch, beneath anddarkly shaded by several small willow trees growing close togetherat the margin of an overflow slough."Eggs.?The set of eggs for the Arizona vireo seems to consist ofeither three or four, perhaps most commonly three. These numbersoften include one or two eggs of the dwarf cowbird. The eggs of thissubspecies are apparently indistinguishable from those of Bell's vireoselsewhere. The four eggs taken by Dr. Grinnell (1914) were "dottedvery sparsely about the large ends with bay and hazel." The measure-ments of 30 eggs average 17.0 by 12,6 millimeters ; the eggs showing thefour extremes measure 18.5 by 12.9, 17.2 by 13.2, 16.0 by 12.4, and16.1 by 12.2 millimeters.Enemies.?This, like other races of Bell's vireo, is a common victimof cowbirds. VIREO BELLI FUSILLUS CouesLEAST VIREOHABITSThe name least vireo was appropriate when applied to all the vireosof this species in the far West and Southwest, as it formerly was;but it seems to be a misnomer for the California race, as its measure-ments indicate that it is slightly larger than either the Arizona or theTexas race.Ridgway (1904) describes it as "similar to V. h. arisonw, but stillgrayer above and whiter beneath ; the upper parts between olive-grayand mouse gray without distinct tinge of greenish olive except on843290?50 18 266 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMrump and uper tail-coverts (and there obviously only in fresh plu-mage) ; under parts nearly pure white, including under tail-coverts,the sides and flanks washed with pale olive-gray or grayish olive,but with only the merest trace of yellow tinge ; wing and tail averaginglonger. Young with upper parts decidedly paler and grayer, andunder parts of body, with under tail-coverts, pure white throughout."The haunts of the least vireo in California are similar in a generalway to those of Bell's vireo in the Central States, mainly dense thicketsof willows and low bushes along streams or damp places, or in alderthickets in wet bottom lands. In the Lassen Peak region, accordingto Grinnell, Dixon, and Linsdale (1930), "it lived for the most partnear the ground in the stream-side willow thickets. Individual birdswere seen also to forage into grapevine tangles, valley oaks, and liveoaks. * * * The closest avian associate of the least vireo was theyellow warbler. For example, a mid-river island in the Sacramentotwo miles or so above Red Bluff, and comprising about ten acres, har-bored on May 7 three singing male vireos and eight singing malewarblers. But in foraging, the vireos kept near the ground, belowabout the 3-foot level, while the warblers kept mostly above thatlevel."Nesting.?Grinnell and Storer (1924) record a completed nest thatthey found in the Yosemite region on May 8, 1919 : It was in deep shade under a tbicket of willows and white alders which gi'ewon the lower slope of a pile of gravel left by a gold dredger. The nest was 19inches above the gravel, and instead of being placed in one of the stout crotchesof the adjacent alder it liad been lashed to a slender fork on the brittle stem of avpeed of the previous season's growth. This was only 7 feet from the margin ofa pool of quiet water. In form the nest was a well rounded, deep and ratherthin-walled cup with slightly inrolled rim. It was composed of dry shreds ofplants felted compactly with down from cottonwoods and willows. Outside, itmeasured 2 inches in height and 2iA inches in greatest diameter, while the interiorwas 114 incites deep at the center and about 1% inches across the opening.In what was once called Nigger Slough, near Los Angeles, on May30, 1914, we found a least vireo's nest containing two eggs ; it was hungin a fork of a slender willow sapling in a thicket of these trees, 7 feetabove the damp ground ; in construction, it was similar to the one men-tioned above.The nests often contain cowbirds' eggs, as do all other races of thiscommon host.Eggs.?The eggs are like those of the species elsewhere. The meas-urements of 40 eggs in the United States National Museum average17.4 by 12.7 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremes measure19.1 by 12.2, 18.0 by 13.2, and 15.8 by 11.2 millimeters.Behavior.?Grinnell, Dixon, and Linsdale (1930) watched a pairof these vireos on April 23, 1928, in what may or may not have been LEAST VIREO 267part of a courtship performance: "The birds were in willows andsparse brush along a small stream in the hills. One, probably themale, was singing and keeping within one meter of the other, bothmoving through the low branches, feeding. The singing bird keptits tail spread and frequently gave it a twitch, spreading the feathersstill more. Also at intervals the tail was pushed downward to anearly vertical position."James Murdock, of Glendale, Calif., writes to me : "An experiencewith a least vireo, concerning the stealth with which it sometimes ap-proaches its nest, may interest you. A friend and I watched a pair ofbirds moving in and out of the willows in a stream bed near Santa Ana,Calif., and we soon felt that we had located the area in which the nestwas placed. Time after time we would search this area and find noth-ing. Finally, in desperation, we decided to stand on the outskirts ofthis area, absolutely still (as nearly as we could manage it) and moreor less hidden in the thick branches of the willows. My friend did notsucceed in standing very still, but regardless of his movements, we soonsaw the bird enter the branches at the usual place. What was our sur-prise to see the bird turn sharply in flight just after it had entered thetree area and fly directly to a branch that was hanging down just overthe head of my friend. Then the bird seemed to disappear. Themystery was solved only when we began to search every inch of thisbranch. Concealed from our view, directly above the spot on whichmy friend had been standing, was the tiny nest with the bird in it. Wewere able to touch the bird in the nest and she did not fly. We musthave looked at it directly more than 15 times before it could be seen."Voice.?Grinnell and Storer ( 1924) give two descriptions of the songof the least vireo, somewhat different from those given for the easternBell's vireo : "To one observer the song sounded like this : loe-cher,che we, che we-chey? we cJier, die we, che we, cheey. Each set ofsyllables was uttered rapidly, with a distinct rest between the two."The other song was uttered by the male while he was following thefeeding female. "This song was transcribed on the spot as wretchy,wretchy, wretchy, loretchy, wrcef wretchy, wretchy loretchy, wret-cheur, wreer. The r's here indicate a burred or rolling quality ; andthe whole song was, as usual, hurried in its delivery. The question-and-answer inflection was striking."Field marks.?The least vireo is decidedly smaller than the otherCalifornia vireos, except Hutton's, and slightly smaller than thelatter. Hutton's vireo is more stockily built, its plumage more fluffy,its movements more deliberate, and its white eye ring and two whitewing bars are more conspicuous. The least vireo is slimmer in out-line, it is very active in all its movements and its general coloring isgrayish, rather than greenish ; it lives in the low thicket, rather than 268 BULLETIN" 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMin the trees, and its song is quite distinctive. One of its two whitishwing bars is often inconspicuous or worn away to obsolescence, sothat it shows only one. VIREO VICINOR CoucsGRAY VIREOCONTKIDUTED BY WENDELL TaBERHABrrsParched and barren foothills of the higher mountains baking inthe searing heat of the interior of southern California?such is thefavorite haunt of the gray vireo. Camped near the upper edge ofthe shelf rising sharply in some 3 or 4 miles from the floor of theMohave Desert to the almost sheer-rising massive wall of the SanGorgonio Mountains, I arose one frigid May 18 when the thermometerwas most certainly in the low forties if not in the thirties and startedin pursuit of what was obviously a gray vireo singing joyously nearby.Cold or heat, it seemed to matter little. A few minutes of quiet trail-ing with the inevitable tantalizing fleeting glimpses were finally re-warded : the bird appeared on the outside of a bush and greeted mewith the full benefit of his song, which was rendered even moresuperb by the unusual setting. I have spent far more time chasingdown a Canada warbler deeply intrenched in a boggy forest in theEast, as well as many others of our eastern forest dwellers, and canbut wonder whether the well-known elusivencss of the gray vireo isnot merely a matter of comparison with other western species in acountry where low, dense foliage is comparatively lacking.Other gray vireos were singing in the vicinity. The terrain was adry wash several hundred feet above the Mohave and within perhapsa mile of the mountain bulwark. Juniper and cholla cactus were themost common forms of vegetation. Other birds in the immediatevicinity were western gnatcatchers, Lawrence's goldfinches, and desertand black-chinned sparrows. Unpleasantly, if not significantly, agood-sized rattlesnake turned up altogether too near our sleepingspot.Grinnell and Swarth (1913) limit the distribution of the grayvireo in the San Jacinto region of southern California to the^^Adenostoma minor association, of the Chaparral major association,of the San Dicgan faunal division, of the Upper Sonoran Zone,"chiefly on the Pacific side of the mountain. They found the speciesbetween about 3,000 and 6,500 feet altitude. On one occasion thespecies was among pinyons. Of primary importance, they bring outthe fact that being preeminently an inhabitant of dry chaparral thespecies conflicts with no other member of the genus. On one occasionthis species, the western warbling vireo, and the Cassin vireo were all GRAY VIREO 269heard simultaneously. "The notes of the latter two, however, re-sounded respectively from the alder-lined ravine bottoms, and fromthe golden or black oaks of the cool slopes, while the gray vireo sangfrom the chamissal on the hot, steep slopes." Likewise, they heardboth the Button's and the gray vireos from the same stand, "theformer, however, from the golden oaks, the latter, as usual, from thebrush belt adjacent." To make representation in the genus complete asfar as normal distribution is concerned, they also found both the grayand the least vireos in one short stretch, "the former in some chamissalstraggling down the west wall to the lowest limit of its range, thelatter species in some guatemote and chilopsos along the stream bed."They summarize the relationships of the various members of thegenus as follows: "The presence of no less than five closely relatedspecies of one family in so limited a region is obviously closely depend-ent upon the separate, sharp, associational and zonal preferments ofeach. The warbling, Cassin and Hutton vireos are arboreal foragers;the least and gray vireos brush foragers; but the least is riparian,while the gray is distinctly a dry-slope forager." They conclude thatthe gray vireo "has only been able to find its way into the avifaunaof southern California from a Sonoran center of dispersal, throughthe existence of an associational niche not occupied by another vireo."Grinnell (1922) found an adult pair on the west slope of WalkerPass in northeastern Kern County, Calif., on July 25, 1922. Thelocation was at an altitude close to 4,500 feet on a steep, north-facinghillside. Upper Sonoran Life Zone, but in a semiarid phase of it. "Thebirds were in sparse brush {Garrya^ Kvmzia, Artemisia tridentata^and Cercocarpus hetulaefoUus) ; and a digger pine and a pinyon bothgrew within one hundred feet of where they were discovered."W. E. D. Scott (1885) took a specimen in Arizona on April 1 "in apretty rolling grass country, where the trees are rather scattered,and at an altitude of 3500 feet." He says further : On the San Pedro River foothills of Las Sierras de Santa Catalina, at analtitude ranging from 2S00 feet to 4000 feet (which is here the point of meetingof the mesquite timber and the evergreen oaks), [the species] is, excepting theLeast Vireo (,Virco pusillus), the commonest form of Vireo, being fairly abun-dant. * * * The two altitudes mentioned seem to be about the limits of thespecies while breeding, and most of the birds secured were obtained between3000 and 3500 feet altitude. * * * The locality where the species is mostabundant is where the mesquites terminate and the oaks begin; there beingof course a sort of gradual transition and no well or clearly defined line, the twoforms of trees being mingled about equally, I have found that the smooth flatmesas, and the broad open bottoms of the wider canon are quite as muchfrequented by them as the rough and broken hillsides, and it is difficult to rideabout anywhere between the altitudes above mentioned, without hearing thevery characteristic song of the species.It is interesting to note that on June 26 he did find one bird wellup within the oak belt. 270 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMNesting.?Grinnell and Swarth (1913) found a nest in the uppertangle of a greasewood {Adenostoma fasciculatwn). This nest was33 inches from the ground, which was sloping, and was discerniblefor several yards though well surrounded by the sparsely leavedgreasewood twigs. Another nest, also found on the same date, May21, in the same kind of a bush, was 36 inches above the ground. Thenests are "similar to other vireo's nests in shape and semi-pensileattachment. The main support is at the rims, but their situationamong i\\Q. close-set, obliquely upright, stiffish stems of the grease-wood afforded some support by minor twigs." They give detailsas follows : The measurements of the nests are, respectively, of each of the two nests ineach respect : outside diameter, about 76, 73 mm. ; inside diameter, 48, 47 ; outside depth, 54, 59; inside depth, 41, 43. The nests are composed largely ofsilvery gray weathered grass and plant fibers, usually with the vascular bundlesunraveled. Some of these elements were evidently grass blades, some stems ofplants, and others the shredded bark of weed-stalks. There is an admixtureof tenacious spider-web, and portions of .spider cocoons ; on the very outside, inboth cases, are many unbroken, tridentate, gray leaves of the sagebrush. In-ternally the nests are lined with a distinct layer of slender, disintegrated, hair-like fibers of great length, so that the inner surfaces of the nests are firm andsmooth, but porous.Florence M. Bailey (1928) describes New Mexico nests as being "in thorny bushes or trees, 4 to 6 feet from the ground, occasionallysupported underneath or on sides ; made sometimes of mesquite barkand loosely woven coarse grass, lined with fine grass, but also madeof plant fibers, spider web, and cocoons, lined with long vegetablefibers and decorated with sagebrush leaves." She describes, how-ever (1904), a nest found in junipers at Montoya, northeastern NewMexico, which was composed "principally of shreds of bark, ap-parently the soft juniper bark, and, unlike ordinary vireo nests, wasunadorned."W. E. D. Scott (1885) found a number of nests in Arizona ofwhich one was "about seven feet from the ground, in smooth, flatcountry, at an altitude of about 3500 feet." Another nest was builtnear the center of a mesquite and was about 6 feet from the ground inan upright V formed by two upright limbs. Although admitting thatthe rim of the nest was attached for almost half an inch of its circum-ference to a small twig on one side, and for an inch to another twigon the other side, he states : "The bottom of the nest outside does notquite rest in the angle of the V, but the sides rest firmly against thelimbs forming it, and the result is a Vireo's nest resting in a crotch,and in no degree pensile."Yet another nest he describes as ? built in a kind of thorn bush, almost at the extremity of one of the upper andoverhanging branches, six feet from the ground. It is composed externally of the GRAY VIREO 271diT outside skin or bark of a coarse kind of grass, ratlier loosely woven. Butimmediately beneath this loose, external layer is a wall of the same material,very closely and strongly woven. The lining of the nest, which is very distinctfrom the walls, extends throughout the interior. It is much thicker on the bot-tom of the structure, but extends up to the rim, where, however, it is thin. It iscomposed of fine dry grasses, arranged on the sides of the nest in concentric layers,much as the horsehairs are placed in the nest of Spizella domestica. On thebottom this arrangement does not obtain, but the grasses cross one another seem-ingly at I'andom, forming a soft mat. The walls are uniformly about one-foui'thof an inch in tliickness, and the shape of the entire structure is that of a halfsphere. The external diameter at the rim is two and three-fourths inches, andthe diameter at the same point inside is two and one-quarter inches. The depthoutside is two inches, and inside one inch and three-quarters. The nest is at-tached at the I'im for almost the entire circumference very much like a Red-eyedVireo's nest, but here the resemblance ceases, for it is not fastened to the manysmall twigs, on which it rests, that pass diagonally downward, so that it is noteven a semi-pensile structure. The thorns of the bush, which are from an inchand a half to two inches long and very sharp, protect the nest in every direction,for the whole is entirely surrounded by twigs and small branches.He states further : "The structure is, as a whole, very symmetrical,but is widely different from that of other Vireos which breed in theneighborhood."James Murdock, of Glendale, Calif., in a letter to Mr. Bent, statesthat the nests he has found have usually been small and without anycolors that stand out against the background ; the spot is, therefore,quite difficult to see. He says that on one occasion he found the nest "only after watching the bird hop repeatedly from branch to branchin the chaparral, always seemingly following the same routine. Thisbird usually entered from the left side of the tree and progressed byhopping from branch to branch around the outside of the bush facingme and then bj^ going through the bush back nearly to the spot at whichit first perched. I found the nest near this location."Wilson C. Hanna writes to Mr. Bent: "My notes record 13 nests,and these have been between 214 feet and 8 feet from the ground,averaging 4 feet. The host shrubs have been about equally dividedbetween big sagebrush {Artemida tridentata) , antelopoe-brush (Pur-shia glandulosa) ^ and greasewood chamise {Adenostoma fascicula-tum), and a single nest each in mountain-mahogany (Cercocarpushetulaefolius) and pinyon {Pinus TnonopJiylla) yEggs.?Scott (1885) discovered a nest in Arizona on May 26 whichwas apparently finished, Vv^th the female sitting very close. He says : "Daily visits to the spot showed the same circumstances obtaining untilMay 30, when the first egg was laid ; and then an ^^g was laid dailyuntil June 2, when the laying was completed, four eggs being in thiscase the full set." He says further that the eggs are "rather roundedin general shape, though one end is somewhat sharper than the other.The ground-color is rosy when fresh, becoming a dead white when 272 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMblown, rather sparsely spotted with irregularly shaped dark umberbrown dots, chiefly at the larger end." With one egg broken, hegives the measurements of the others as ".77 x .59, .78 x .58, and .75 x .57inches." Another nest found on June 6 "contained three slightlyincubated eggs, which do not vary in color from those already de-scribed, except that the spots are of a slightly redder brown, and theyare more concentrated at the larger end. The eggs are rather smallerand even more rounded in general shape than the other set spoken of,being but little more pointed at one end than at the other. Theymeasure .72 x 53, .70 x .55, and .G8 x .53 inches, respectively."Grinnell and Swarth (1913) describe the eggs as "pure white incolor, with numerous abruptly-defined minute dots and spots of notmore than one-half millimeter diameter, nearly all agglomeratedaround the large ends. In color these markings are mostly very dark,of clove brown and sepia tones; a few approach drab. The eggsmeasure : no. 74 : 18.3 x 14.5, 18.7 x 14.0, 18.8 x 14.1 ; no. 75 : 17.8 x 14.7,17.8 X 14.6, 18.2 X 14.7."Frank Stephens (1890) gives measurements as 0.73 by 0.57, 0.74 by0.55, 0.74 by 0.55, and 0.77 by 0.53 inch, with color similar to thosedescribed by Scott.The measurements of 31 other eggs average 18.0 by 13.5 millimeters ; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 19.7 by 13.9, 18.6 by 14.6,17.2 by 12.4, and 17.7 by 12.2 millimeters.Young.?Florence M. Bailey (1904) found a nest with three newlyhatched young at Montoya, N. Mex., on June 15. But W. E. D.Scott (1885) in Arizona found fully fledged young shifting for them-selves on June 4 and on the same day "found a pair of these birdsjust starting to build : but this was the second brooding, as the femaleof the pair, which I took before I discovered the nest, clearly showed."Again, he took on May 26 "two young males that had just left thenest and were under the care of the male parent bird."Coues (1878) says of the young: "A specimen just from the nest isbrownish-gray above, white below, without a trace of olivaceous oryellowish on the body; the quills and tail-feathers have yellowish-olive edgings, rather stronger than in the adult, and there is a slightwhitish bar across the ends of the greater coverts. The bird bearsa superficial resemblance to a small faded specimen of F. plumheiLS^but is quite different."Ridgway (1904) says : "Texture of plumage looser and much softerthan in adults; coloration similar, but the gray of upper parts slightlymore brownish, white of under parts purer, and pale edgings toremiges and rectrices and tips of greater coverts tinged with paleolive."Plumages.?W. E. D. Scott (1885) says of his series of 42 males GRAY VIREO 273and 12 females, all of which except one were taken between April 1and June 11, "They present very little variation in size or color, andthe young in first plumage do not differ materially from the adultbirds."Frank Stephens (1890) considers the California birds differentfrom those east of tlie Colorado River in breeding area. He says : "Themost prominent difference betw^een the two forms is the darker colorabove, combined with the greater amount of whitish edging on wingand tail, in the California form."Grinnell (1922) collected a male out of a pair at Walker Pass, KernCounty, Calif., on July 25, 1922. He says that the bird "proved to bein molt, with only two of the old tail-feathers remaining and with newfeathers showing where old ones had fallen out, in the wings and inmost of the body tracts. The weight of the bird was 12.5 grams."Grimiell and Swarth (1913) describe an adult male secured on Au-gust 27 as being in nearly full fresh fall plumage. "The annual moltis very nearly completed, only the outermost primaries being stillpartly unsheathed." They say furtlier:Since there is in all probability no spring molt, even partial, this bird presentsthe true color characters of the species. As compared with the better knownspring plumage, conspicuous among various species of the family for its generalplumbeous tone, the freshly acquired plumage is not so distinctly gray save aboutthe head. The whole dorsum, the outer surface of closed wing, and, more ap-preciably, the rump and upper tail coverts, are pervaded with a tinge of green;the sides and flanks have a conspicuous tinge or mixture of primrose yellow;and there is a faint buffy suffusion across the chest. All these tints are evidentlyvei-y much reduced, or obliterated altogether, through the intervening monthsof wear and fading, until spring brings the notable gray cast again.With more material than had been available to Frank Stephens, theycame to the conclusion there was no basis for systematic separation ofthe California birds from the Arizona ones. They conclude, in thisrespect, as follows : "From a consideration of its distribution as nowknown, it appears probable that the gray vireo has invaded Californiafrom the south-central plateau region of western North America,within relatively recent times."Food.?Frank Stephens (1878) comments as follows: "I have neverseen them catching insects in tlie air, as some other Vireos do, but haveobserved them scratching on the ground like a Pipilo."From the only two stomachs examined by the Biological Survey, Dr.Edward A. Chapin (1925) could obtain only a hint as to the food ofthe gray vireo: "Caterpillars and a small moth were found in onestomach, together with a stink-bug {Prionosoma fodoinoides) , a treehopper {Platycenf/rus acuticornis), and a tree cricket {Oecanthus).In the other stomach two dobson flies (Chaidiodes), a small cicada{Tibicinoides hesperius) , and a long-horned grasshopper made up the 274 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMgreater part of the contents; two beetles {Acmaeodera neglecta andPachy'brachys) complete the list."Behavior.?Grinnell and Swarth (1913) found the species a constantaccompaniment of the belts of the two species of chaparral bushes,Adenostoma sfarsifollum and A. fascieulatum. They say: "Whileadhering closely to the cover of these plants, it foraged also throughscrub oak, manzanita, and ceanothus, occasionally into four-leafedpifion {Pinus parryana) or sagebrush {Artemisia tndentata). Theforage depth of this vireo is between one and five feet above the ground,rarely any higher. A person may follow a bird around for twentyminutes, keeping track of it by the oft-repeated song, without catchinga view of it above the level of the chaparral tops."Grinnell (1922) witnessed a particularly interesting variation fromthe foregoing of which he writes as follows: "From the bushes shewent into the pinyon tree before mentioned, and thence into the diggerpine, reaching the unusual height of some fifteen feet above the slopeat the base of the tree. Her head was turned from side to side atfrequent intervals, especially when she approached and eyed mecuriously at a range of not more than 12 feet." He also brought outthe fact that most of the time the tail drooped below the axis line ofthe body.H. W. Henshaw (1875), finding adults with fledged young onJuly 8, says : "The parents manifested the utmost solicitude, and flewto meet me, uttering a variety of notes, now flying to the edge of thethicket, and remonstrating with me with harsh cries of anger andalarm, now returning to their young, and with earnest warning notesendeavoring to lead them away from a spot which to them seemedfraught with danger." The young were still dependent on the oldfor food.W. E. D. Scott (1885) on May 26 found a "female sitting on thenest, and the male singing in the bushes close at hand. The femalewas very tame, and in order to see the interior of the nest I was obligedto touch her with my fingers before she would leave her home. Severaltimes afterwards, in watching the progress of laying, I was obligedto repeat this action, and once had to lift the bird out of the nest."J. Van Tyne and G. M. Sutton (1937) collected a pair in BrewsterCounty, Tex., and commented on three birds seen about "the habit offlicking their long tail nervously as the gnatcatcher does."A. J. van Rossem (1932) speaks of the bird as "far from typicalof the family in habits for its quick, jerky movements and cocked-uptail led us more than once to mistake it for a wren."Voice.?H. W. Henshaw (1875) says of the song, "One of the mostbeautiful I had ever heard from any of the family," an opinion withwhich the writer, who has heard nearly every species of vireo inthe United States, concurs. GRAY VIREO 275Grinnell and Swarth (1913) say: "Tlie presence of the gray vireois most easily ascertainable through the peculiar and far-reachingsong." Describing the song, which they attribute to the male only,they state: "The song of tlie gray vireo is loud and full-toned, involume and quality. In these respects it reminds the hearer stronglyof the Cassin Vireo, yet with the twang and less deliberate utteranceof a western tanager. In measure, and in the suggestion of alternaterising and falling inflection, it recalls the least vireo.Grinnell (1922) mentions the "broken, post-nuptially rendered songof the male?intermittent and sketchy, yet distinct enough from thesongs of other vireos to be recognized at once." Speaking of the femalehe said : "The only note she gave was a low harsh churr or shray^ givennow and then as she hopped slowly through the twiggery."Frank Stephens (1878) says: "They sing pretty steadily, the songconsisting of a couple of syllables repeated with different inflections,something like chu-wee, chu-wee, chu-wee, generally pausing a littleafter three or four notes. Sometimes the order is reversed. This seemsto be the song of the male, as the only female that I am positive ofhaving heard, sung more like V. pusillus. Sometimes when alarmedthey will scold like a wren, when near to them, as they are singing,a sort of whistling sound can be heard between the notes."Ealph Hoffmann (1927) in an attempt to reduce the songs tosyllables gives them as "c7?ee toi, chee wi, c/ioo or cite iveet^ cliee;che churr loeetyW. E. D. Scott (1885) describes the song as "composed of singlewhistling notes, generally delivered rather slowly, and seeminglywith hesitation, and in an abstracted way, as if the performer werethinking the while of other affairs; and yet frequently this sort ofabstraction seems cast aside, and the same series of notes are givenwith a precision and brilliancy that calls to mind a fine performanceof a Scarlet Tanager, or even of a Robin."Field marhf..?Roger T. Peterson (1941) points out that the species "has a narroio tohite eye-ring but differs from other Vireos havingsimilar eye-rings by having no wlnghars or one faint one." The songand the habit of flicking the long tail nervously as the gnatcatcherdoes are the most readily noticed characteristics.Elliott Coues (1866) describes the bird as follows: "Tail verylong ; as long as the wings ; decidedly rounded | * * * Xhe wingsare short and remarkably rounded. * * * xiie colors of the spe-cies are almost exactly those of plumbeus; * * * in form thetwo birds are widely diverse. It is a smaller species than plumheus^but its greatly elongated tail make the total lengths of the two nearlythe same. * * * j^ is unnecessary to compare vicinior with anyother species, it is so very dissimilar from them all." 276 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMDISTRIBUTION'Range.?Soutliwestern United States, Lower California, and thewestern coast of Mexico.Breeding range.?The gray vireo breeds north to southern Cali-fornia (Saiigus and Walker Pass, possibly) ; southern Nevada(Grapevine Mountains and probably Oak Spring) ; southwesternUtah (Beaverdam Mountains and has occurred north to Salina) ;northeastern Arizona (Keams Canyon) ; is casual or accidental atLamar, Colorado ; and extreme western Oklahoma (Kenton) . East towestern Oklahoma (Kenton) ; east-central New Mexico (PajaritoCreek near Montoya) ; and western Texas (Guadalupe Mountains nearFrijole). South to western Texas (Frijole) ; southwestern New Mex-ico (Apache and Silver City) ; southern Arizona (Tombstone andSanta Catalina Mountains) ; and northern Lower California (SanRafael Valley). West to northern Lower California (San RafaelValley) and southern California (Campo, San Jacinto Mountains,Riverside, and Saugus) . ^YinteT range.?In winter the gray vireo is as yet known only fromthe coast of Sonora (San Esteban and Tiburon Islands to Guaymas)and the Cape region of Lower California. There is also a specimen,accidental or in migration, from Irde, Durango, taken on August 13,1898.Migration.?In Sonora the extreme dates of occurrence are Septem-ber 15 to April.Dates of spring arrival are: Texas?Frijole, April 30. Arizona ? Santa Catalina Mountains, April 1. California?Mecca, March 26.Dates of fall departure are: California?San Jacinto Mountains,August 27. Utah?Salina, August 22. Arizona?Grand Canyon,September 14.Egg dates.?Arizona : 7 records, May 20 to June 6.California : 12 records, April 20 to July 4 ; 6 records, May 21 to 29,indicating the height of the season.VIREO FLAVIFRONS VieillotYELLOW-THROATED VIREOHABITSThis handsome vireo, the most brilliantly colored of the family, iswidely distributed over the eastern half of the United States andsouthern Canada, but it is not equally common everywhere throughoutthis wide range, and it is uncommon or rare in many places. When Iwas a boy it was a conmion bird in southeastern Massachusetts, andwe often saw its beautiful nests in our shade trees and orchards: but YELLOW-THROATED VIREO 277now, alas, it is only a happy memory; I have not seen one here formany years. It has {probably gone from many another of its formerhabitats. I have always suspected that its disappearance was largelydue to the extensive spraying of our shade and orchard trees. Thered-eyed vireo, also, seems to have been driven away from our homegrounds and the shade trees along our streets, probably for the samereason, but it is still common enough in our deciduous woodlands.The yellow-throated vireo, in my experience, has never been as muchof a woodland bird as the redeye and far less so than the closely re-lated blue-headed vireo. Dr. Brewer (Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway,1874) expresses it very well as follows : "All the older ornithologicalwriters, in speaking of the Yellow-throated Vireo, repeat each otherin describing it as jjeculiarly attracted to the forest, seeking its soli-tudes and gleaning its food chiefly among its topmost branches.Such has not been my experience with this interesting and attractivelittle songster. I have found no one of this genus, not even the gilva,so common in the vicinity of dwellings, or more familiar and fearlessin its intercourse with man."It is only fair to say, however, that Dr. Brewer's observations wereevidently made near Boston, Mass., where its haunts were much as theyused to be here. In other portions of its range, and to some extentin the east, it may be found on the edges of woodlands, in groves andin open stands of oaks, maples, and other hardwood trees, but seldomin the dense forests. Dr. Dayton Stoner (1932), referring to theOneida Lake region in New York, writes : "It seems to be more widelydispersed in early spring than later when its local distribution becomesmore restricted, being then confined largely to orchards and groves,the vicinity of cottages and summer camps, tall roadside trees andthose in the villages about the lake. I have been particularly im-pressed by the numbers of yellow-throated vireos about the villages ofBridgeport and Cleveland during the summer. Wooded tracts com-posed largely or solely of tall maples, wild black cherry and otherhardwoods * * * also appeal to this vireo."Probably in such localities the yellow-throated vireo would be likelyto survive longer than in the much-sprayed roadside trees and orchardsof Massachusetts.Nesting.?The yellow-throated vireo builds the handsomest nest ofany of the vireos, even prettier than the best examples of the nestsof the blue-headed vireo, and fully as well decorated as the nests ofthe hummingbird, wood pewee, and blue-gray gnatcatcher, thoughdiffering from all these in shape and suspended from the prongs ofa forked twig. The general construction of the nest is similar tothat of other vireos, but it is very well made and firmly attached tothe supporting twigs. In one before me the supporting twigs areentirely concealed by the masses of cobwebs and other material that 278 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMhave been tightly drawn over them and covered with lichens; thewhole body of tlie nest is almost completely covered with small bitsof variously colored tree lichens, all held securely in place by numer-ous fine strands of spider silk ; the deep cup, with its thick walls andincurving rim above it, is neatly lined with fine grass tops. It meas-ures approximately 3 inches in outside diameter and about 2i/^ inchesin outside depth; internally the cup is about 2 inches in diameter atthe top and II/2 inches deep ; the bulging sides make the inner cavitywider below the rim, thus giving the eggs or young more security asthe nest is swayed in the wind.The nests of the yellow-throated vireo are placed in a variety ofdeciduous trees, but rarely in conifers. The height from the groundvaries from 3 feet to 60 feet; apparently most of them are over 20feet up. A nest was built in a tuliptree close to my house, about 20feet above the ground, attached to a forked twig that projected froma horizontal branch in the middle of the large tree, and within a fewyards of my dressing-room window. The nest, now in my collec-tion, is beautifully decorated with the egg cases of spiders and greenand gray tree lichens, firmly secured with spider silk and lined withfine, dry needles of the white pine. I have found a number of nestsin old, neglected apple orchards; these were also fully camouflagedwith lichens picked from the branches and trunks of the old lichen-covered trees, so that they blended beautifully with their surroundingsand were easily overlooked.Dr. Brewer (Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway, 1874) writes:All of its nests that I have ever met with have been built in gardens andorchards, and in close proximity to dwellings, and they have also been exclu-sively in comparatively low positions. In one of the most recent instances apair of these bii'ds built one of their beautiful moss-covered nosts in a lowbranch of an apple tree that overhung the croquet ground, within a few rods ofmy house. It was first noticed in consequence of its bold little builder flying inmy face whenever I approached too near, even before its nest contained anyeggs. The grounds were in frequent use, and the pair were at first a good dealdisturbed by these constant intrusions, but they soon became reconciled totheir company, and would not leave their position, even though the game wascontested immediately under their nest, which was thus often brought withina foot of the heads of the players. Before this nest was quite finished, the femalebegan her duties of incubation. Her assiduous mate was constantly engagedat first in completing the external ornamentation of the nest with lichens andmosses, and then with a renewal of his interrupted concerts of song. Theseduties be varied by frequent captures of insects, winged and creeping, most ofwhich he duly carried to his mate.Edward R. Ford sends me the following notes : "Of 14 nests of theyellow-throated vireo, found in Newaygo County, Mich., my noteslack desirable detail because of the height at which they were placed,25 to 40 feet from the ground. However, all nests had this in com-mon : They were placed within the crown of the tree on small, sturdy YELLOW-THROATED VIREO 279branches at right angles to the trunk, or to a hirge upright forkthereof. At the point of attachment to the supporting branch, thenests were within from 12 to 20 inches of the trunk or fork. Exceptin two instances of comparatively low nests, they were built inrather large oaks or, once, in a wild cherry. One low nest was in asmall oak, the other in an apple tree. Four nests were placed near,or directly above, the roof of some cottage or outbuilding near theshore of Hess Lake. All the nests found were not far from the lake,and some were in the woods, apart from man-made structures."An unusual circumstance was the use of a repaired and redeco-rated nest of the previous year. This brought forth a brood in thefirst part of June. One pair was observed to carry nesting materialto two separate sites, about 20 yards apart. On the second day workceased at one site, near a building, but was continued at the otheruntil the nest was completed. Like other vireos, this species isstrongly attached to the nest. One bird that I attempted to remove bylifting it from the nest was so obdurate that I gave up, fearful ofdamaging the contents."A. Dawes Du Bois writes to me : "In 1933, while selecting a spot forplanting some wild anemones, I chanced to see a yellow-throated vireoat work on a nest in a basswood tree near the corner of our house.The nest could be seen from the bathroom window, which was abouton a level with it and only 25 feet away. The nest seemed about in themidstage of construction. Both birds were working industriously;sometimes one would come before the other left. The procedure wasof three kinds: (1) to place material inside of the nest; (2) to workfrom outside the nest, pulling material upward and outward overthe rim and over the supporting twigs; (3) to get inside the nest andwork with the feet, shaping and enlarging the nest, and stretching itto greater depth. The last action shovv^ed plainly fi-om tlie outside, asthe bird pushed the nest out into humps in various parts of thebottom."The vireos worked all the next day (May 20) . They chased invad-ing birds away with a vim. On two occasions, when a bird wasworking inside the nest, I observed that its body was in practically avertical position, head in bottom of nest, tail approximately straightup. They continued to work at the nest on the 21st. Once I saw hercarrying a large patch of white cocoon material. "I did not see them doing any work on the 22d. On the 23d thewind blew a gale all day, bringing a dust storm in the afternoon.Twice, in the afternoon, I saw one of the birds working at the rimof the nest, where it was attached to the branchlet, probably repair-ing damage. The next morning the nest was pretty badly wrecked ; and the wind continued. When I returned in the afternoon it had 280 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMbeen blown out of the tree. I found it on the ground ; evidently it hadnot been completed."N. S. Goss (1891) found a nest of the yellow-throated vireo, in thetimber near Neosho Falls, Kans., "attached to branches of a verysmall horizontal limb of a large hickory tree, about twenty feet fromthe ground, and ten feet below the limbs that formed the top of thetree. In the forks of the tree the Cooper's Hawks were nesting, andI discovered the Vireo and its nest in watching the Hawks?or ratherthe man I had hired to climb the tree to the Hawks' nest." Hecontinues : I have since noticed these birds in the woodlands on several occasions, and onthe 18th of May, 1883, vphile strolling along the sonth bank of the KansasRiver, near Topeka, in the timber skirting the stream, I had the pleasure tofind a pair of them building a nest in a honey locust, about sixteen feet fromthe ground, and eight feet from the body of the tree. The nest v?as fastenedto the forks of a small horizontal branch. The frame of the nest appearedto be completed. The birds were busy at work, the female lining the nest withsmall, hair-like stems, the male covering the outside with soft, lint-like fibrousstripplings from plants (these closely resembling the limb and its surroundings),and dotting it over with lichen. * * * As the female stood upon the top ofthe nest, with head down and inside, I could not see the manner of arranging thelining; but as she kept walking around upon the i-im, I could, in imagination,see her plaiting and weaving in and out the hair-like stems. It was very easyand interesting, however, to see and note the actions of the male, as he deftlyworked the material into the framework, running the longer, fibrous, thread-likestrips through, and then quickly springing upon the top, and fastening them on theinside. Then he would rearrange the outside, stopping a moment to inspect thework, and then off in search of more material, occasionally warbling a few noteson the way ; but he was silent at the nest, while I remained so near.John Hutchins (1902) gives a full account of the building of theirnest by a pair of yellow-throated vireos close to his house in Litchfield,Conn. : The discovery of the nest-building was made, as is so often the case, by seeingthe bird gathering material. We were passing near the stable, when underneathits rather deep eaves a small bird was seen to be fluttering, and we thought shewas caught in a strong spider's web, as before now I have found our Humming-bird ; but instead of this the bird was gathering web for her uses, and soon flewaway to the front of the house, whei*e we lost sight of her ; but on coming upcautiously we had the great joy of seeing her fastening the first sticky threads ofher new home to some outstretched twigs of a small low-growing elm branch closeby our windov^ * * The birds began their building on Sunday morning,June 2. By the following Saturday, June 8, the nest was completed, so that theytook about one round week of not hurried, but of quite incessant work to completetheir home-making. * * *The material for the nest was almost all of spider-web. * * * And therewere occasional thread-like shreds of some coarser fiber in the Yellow-throats'building, but by far the larger part was of the twisted films of the spider.* * * The birds built the rim of their nest stout and strong, twisting the webabout the twigs and over and over upon itself where it stretched from twig totwig till I wondered at their ingenuity and patience. Their little beaks reminded YELLOW-THROATED VIREO 281me of the needle of tbe sewing maclnne with its eye at the pointed end. * * *Inside and outside the little heads would reach, with the prettiest turns and cur-vetings imaginable, till, as the nest grew deeper, the work was done more andmore from the inside. Then it was gathered together at the bottom, with sidejoined to side. When this part of the work first took place the nest seemed to bestrangely lacking in depth and had an unshapely look altogether.But this was the point where the full revelation came to me of how the deepestpart is shaped. I saw the bird at this stage inside the nest raise her wingsagainst the upper rim and the twigs which held it and strain with her wingsupward and her feet downward till the nest itself grew so thin that I could seethi'ough it in places. Then they began again, for the most part from the inside,weaving in more material to thicken and strengthen sides and bottom wherethese had become thin and weak through the stretching. This was done manylimes over until the proper depth and thickness were both secured. The nestafter being stretched out in this way would be like the coarse warp of a fabricon a loom, and into this the little weavers wove their silken threads.After this came the embellishing with the bits of lichen. These were brought,and fastened on by means of little filmy threads of the spider drawn from thesurface of the nest and fastened down over the moss.Samuel A. Grimes has sent me two fine photographs of Florida nests(pi. 33), one in a blaclijack oak and one in a loblolly pine. Nestshave been found in other trees than those mentioned above, mostly invarious oaks and maples, but also in beech, chestnut, and elm ; prob-ably some other trees could be added to the list. About one week seemsto be the average time required to build the nest.Eggs.?The yellow-throated vireo lays three to five eggs to a set,usually four. The normal shape is ovate, but some are slightlypointed and some are more oval. They are the handsomest and mostheavily marked of any of the eggs of the vireos. The ground colorvaries from pure white to creamy white or pinkish white, these tintsoften remaining persistent in the collector's cabinet. They are quitestrongly spotted, mostly at the larger end, with various shades ofbrow^i, reddish brown, chestnut, vinaceous-cinnamon, dark brown,blackish, or dilferent shades of drab or lavender; some of the spotsare large enough to be called blotches, even such as occur on king-birds' eggs, but such extremes are very rare; even more rarely, an eggmay be nearly, or quite, immaculate. The larger spots often show awashed-out effect around their edges. The measurements of 50 eggsaverage 20.8 by 14.9 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremesmeasure 22.8 by 16.0, 17.9 by 13.0, and 18.8 by 13.2 millimeters.Young.?The period of incubation for the yellow-throated vireoseems to be about two weeks, and the young remain in the nest for aboutthe same length of time. Very little study of this subject seems tohave been made, but Mr. Hutchins (1902) gives us the followinginformation on it: "After the sitting proper seemed to have begunit was in about two weeks' time that we saw the first signs of life inthe nest. The male bird took his part with the female in the incu-bating. He would bring food to her as she sat upon the nest and, I am843290?50 19 282 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM not quite sure, but think that she did the same with him. * * *My Yellow-throats were very faithful to their young, of which therewere three. The male fed them as attentively as did the mother. OnJuly 7, nearly a month from the beginning of the brooding, the firstyoung bird left the nest. It seemed to take good care of itself, keep-ing to the trees, and the next day the other two followed it."He discovered great clutching power in the feet of one of the youngthat he picked up on the lawn. This w^as evidently of great serviceto the young while tossed about in the nest, for he says : "Throughmany thunder storms which came to us in that month of June I haveseen that slight branch from the body of the elm whip in the blastas if it would be torn from its setting in the great trunk. The nestwould be top-down and driven every way, and yet never a fledgling fellfrom its place. No wonder there had come a development of clutchingpower!"Plumages.?Dr. Dwight (1900) says that the natal down of theyellow-throated vireo is drab, and he describes the juvenal plumageas "above, smoke-gray. Wings and tail black, edged with olive-gray,the secondaries and tertiaries with olive-green (the two inner ter-tiaries white edged), the greater and median coverts with dull whiteforming two wing bands. Below, silky white, the chin, throat andsides of head pale canary-yellow, the orbital ring, ocular region andsuperciliary stripe still paler."A partial postjuvenal molt, involving all the contour plumage andthe wing coverts, but not the rest of the wings or the tail, occurs inJuly and August. This produces the first winter plumage, which ispractically indistinguishable from that of the adult. The upper-parts are now bright olive-green, the wing bars are pure white, and thethroat and breast are bright canary yellow.The sexes are much alike in all plumages, but the female is usuallysomewhat paler than the male in adult plumage. There is appar-ently no spring molt, and wear and fading are not pronounced.There is a complete postnuptial molt late in summer, mainly inAugust.Food.?Reporting on the contents of 160 stomachs of the yellow-throated vireo, collected during the months of April to September,inclusive, Dr. Edward A, Chapin (1925) says: "The yellow-throatedvireo cats comparatively little vegetable food, practically none duringApril and May, none during June and July, less than 2 percent inAugust, and less than 9 percent in September. The average for theyear is only 1.74 percent. Among the items specifically determinedwere sassafras berries and seeds of wild grapes. No cultivated fruitof any kind was found."The animal food was made up of 95.82 percent insects, 2.38 percentspiders, and 0.06 percent other animal matter. YELLOW-THROATED VIREO 283Lepidoptera, butterflies and moths in their various stages, consti-tuted the largest item, more than 42 percent of the whole, of whichcaterpillars amounted to more than half of this, 23.1 percent. Mostof the adults were moths, 19.35 percent. Heiniptera, true bugs, occu-pied second place, stink bugs amounting to 15.5 percent, and the re-maining 7.62 percent including such forms as assassin bugs, scaleinsects, and leafhoppers. "Beetles of all kinds, making up 12.9 percentof the yearly food, stand third in the diet. Ladybird beetles, usuallyplentifully found in the stomachs of vireos, in this species amount toless than 1 percent of the total." The injurious beetles eaten includeweevils, wood-boring forms (Buprestidae and Cerambycidae) , theplant-feeding Elateridae, dung beetles and leaf chafers (Scarabaei-dae), leaf beetles (Chrysomelidae), and ladybird beetles (Coccinelli-dae). Diptera make up 7.36 percent, Hymenoptera 5.07 percent, andother insects 4.92 percent. No honey bees were identified, but therewere some sawflies and ichneumon-flies. The other insects eateninclude grasshoppers, crickets, locusts, dragonflies, cicadas, mosquitoes,midges, and plant lice.Behavior.?On its nest the yellow-throated vireo, like the blue-headed vireo, is a close and steadfast sitter, allowing close approachand even handling ; it cannot easilj^ be driven from its nest and mustoften be removed forcibly, sometimes with difficulty. It seems quitefearless in the presence of humans; Francis Orcutt (1928) tells ofone that came and fed a young bird several times while he held thelittle one in his hand, perching on his thumb or finger. It is, however,sometimes quite aggressive when its nest is approached, attemptingto drive away the intruder by scolding and threatening to attack him.Dr. Brewer (Baird, Brewer, and Eidgwa}'^, 1874) writes:They are somewhat confiding and trustful of man, are readily approached,and soon become so well acquainted with those among whom they have a homeas to fearlessly come to the windows of the house in pursuit of spiders or flies,and even to enter them. In the latter case they cannot readily make their exit,and soon lose their self-possession, beating their heads against the walls andceiling In vain attempts to get out, unless caught and released. In one instancea young bird, that had entered my barn-chamber, became so entangled in cob-webs, around his wings and feet, as to be unable to escape again. When takenin the hand, and his meshes one by one picked out from about his feet and quills,he was very docile, made no resistance or outcry, nor any attempt to escape, untilhe was entirely freed from his bonds, although it required some time and careto accomplish it. When entirely freed from these clogs, and permitted to go,he flew away very deliberately to a short distance, and occupied himself withdressing his disordered plumage.Voice.?Aretas A. Saunders has given me the following elaborateaccount of the song and call notes of this vireo: "The song of theyellow-throated vireo is long continued, consisting of short phrasesseparated by pauses. In this respect it is like the songs of the blue-headed and red-eyed vireos, but there are a number of differences, 284 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMsome apparent when we listen carefully to the bird, others appearingonly when the song is recorded and studied."The yellow-throated vireo's song is slower than those of the othervireos, the pauses between phrases being longer. The quality of thesound is rather reedy and less clear than the others. The pitch islower. The number of different phrases is less, and the bird is in-clined to repeat two to four of them in a regular order. The notesof the phrases are usually slurred together, so that they sound likeeeyay^ ayo^ or ahweeo^ etc. "In the records I have of 52 different birds the pitch varies fromC ' ' ' 'toB ' '. Only one bird sang to C ' ' ' ', the majority hav-ing A ' ' ' or G ' ' ' for the highest note. The rate of singingvaried from one phrase every four-fifths of a second to one every 2seconds. Individuals possess five to nine different phrases, but fre-quently sing only two or three of them for so long a time that patientlistening is required to get them all. The phrases are commonly oftwo or three notes. In all my records there are just two phrases offour notes, and none with more than that. Two-note phrases that slurdownward are much commoner than those that slur upward; that is,ayoh is a commoner phrase than oway. In the same manner in 3-notephrases, such a phrase as oweeaJi is commoner than eeoway."The period of song is from arrival early in spring to early inAugust. The song is revived again late in August or early in Sep-tember. It is impossible to give definite dates of cessation, for thougheach individual stops singing for a time, that time is so short, andthe difference in individuals so great, that there is no certain periodof complete silence for the species, and one cannot be sure, when birdsare heard in mid-August, whether it is the last of the regular periodor the beginning of the revival. The song is not heard in Septemberevery year, but in 14 years in which I have definite dates, the averageis September 8, and the latest September 18, 1939."The yellow-throated vireo has a soft musical call note runningdown in pitch, and with a trilly sound. I have written it in my notesas whree-whree-orrrr. An alarm note is a series of notes, also descend-ing in pitch, chi-chi-cha-cha-chu-chu. Both of these notes bear astrong resemblance to corresponding calls used by the blue-headedvireo."Mr. Skutch writes to me from Costa Kica : "Like the blue-headedvireo, the yellow-throat sings much in its winter home. It is in a song-fid mood upon its arrival late in September or October ; and althoughit may fall silent during the wet closing months of the year, from Jan-uary until its departure in late March or April, it frequently deliversits queer, halting song. Indeed, in many parts of its winter range, thespecies is so rare that it would probably be overlooked but for its habit YELLOW-THROATED VIREO 285 of proclaiming itself at a season when most of the migrants?and alarge proportion of the resident birds, too?are songless."Mr. Ford mentions in his notes "a disturbed trill, which may belikened to the wing sound of a flushed mourning dove, albeit muchdiminished. This seems to be used only when the bird is in attend-ance upon the young. Its scolding note is unlike the whining com-plaint of the warbling vireo and the red-eye. It is a sort of chatter,in tone similar to that of the agitated house wren." These are, ap-parently, the same notes as those described above by Mr. Saunders.Francis H. Allen writes to me : "A call note that I have heard inMay and which may be connected with courtship is a low hew: An-other record of a note heard in early May reads something like sswinkor ssivinkeiy Elsewhere ( 1922) he describes another song : "The songconsisted of several repetitions of a high-pitched note with risinginflection, suggesting the goldfish's call note, but less clear and lessprolonged, followed by shorter, indefinite notes and then by the roll-ing trill, then more of the high-pitched notes, and so on?a sort ofcontinuous performance, perhaps not always in this precise order, buthaving the trills interspersed with these long and short notes. Thecharacteristic chatter of the yellow-throated vireo was also thrownin occasionally. The bird dropped this song presently and beganits ordinary song."E. P. Bicknell (1884) observed one of these vireos singing on thewing : On May 21, 1882, I observed a pair flying about among an open group of trees ; one was being followed by the other; but their motions betrayed none of theexcitement of pursuer and pursued ; their flight was so easy and leisurely thatit was almost restful to watch them. For more than a minute they continuedslowly circling about among the trees, within a space of a few rods, passing inand out among the branches ; several times the leading bird appeared about toalight, but feeling its pursuer close at hand continued its course. The rearbird was constantly giving utterance to its full song notes, which fact probablyaccounts for its uninterested manner as pursuer; for it seemed so engrossedwith the feat of singing during flight that it could give little heed to the chase.Both birds Anally alighted peaceably among the branches, the follower alightingfirst.This may have been part of a courtship display, in which the malewas showing off his powers of song.Albert R. Brand (1938) found that the pitch of the yellow-throatedvireo's song was far below the average for passerine birds ; the approxi-mate mean was 2,750, the highest note 3,825 and the lowest 2,325 vibra-tions per second.The fact that the yellow-throated vireo has been heard to sing thesong of the blue-headed vireo, several times by competent observers,and that the bluehead has been observed to sing the yellowthroat's song,suggests that these two closely related species may occasionally hy- 286 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMbridize ; and there is some evidence to support this theory. WilliamBrewster (1906) reported that, during two seasons, a bkie-headedvireo repeatedly sang both songs in his garden ; and he suggested thepossibility that it might have been paired with a yellow-throated vireo,though he had no evidence to prove it. Dr. Charles W. Townsend(1920) says : "On May 8, 1919, a bird that sang the wild clear song ofthe blue-headed vireo so that there seemed to be no mistake about itsidentity turned out to be be a yellow-throated vireo." And Bagg andEliot (1937) have this to say on the subject.Throughout the fifteen years 1921-35, according to Prof. Eliot, the Smith Col-lege Yellow-breast has sung the same song. * * * iq 1930 (but not again)another male took up quarters in the same neighborhood who sang two songs ? his own species' and the Blue-headed Vireo's. Inspection showed that he lookeddarker, especially about the head, than normal for his kind; and suspicion wasat least aroused that in the scarcity of Yellow-throated females his father (pre-sumably the Smith College male), perhaps widowed, had persuaded a Blue-headto mate with him, the year before. * * * lu Agawam on May 26, 1936, thesong of a blue-head, seeming very out of place, was looked up and found toissue from a typical-looking Yellow-breast (Eliot). Apparently the fiavifronscoloration is "dominant" in hybrids. Probably it was that of the two species'common ancestor, and soUiarius originated as a northern variant or "sport".* * * On June 22, 1936, near Mt. Tekoa (not at all Yellow-breast country),Mr. Dietrich studied a Blue-head with a yellow wash on the throat and "incom-plete eye-ring"?possibly the effect of Yellow-breast blood?This is an interesting theory, but it is strange that no hybrids havefound their way into collections ! Field marks.?The yellow-throated vireo should be unmistakable,with its brilliant yellow throat and breast, only slightly less brilliantin the female than in the male, its olive-green back and its double, whitewing bars. No other northern vireo is so brightly colored. It is muchmore deliberate in its movements than any of the warblers, less slenderin form, and has a heavier bill. It looks something like a pine warbler,but this warbler frequents the pines, whereas this vireo is almost alwaysseen in deciduous trees. Its color pattern is somewhat like that ofthe yelloW'-breasted chat, which is seldom seen away from densethickets, is larger, and has a much longer tail ; the behavior of thesetwo is very different. The contralto voice of the yellowthroat willalso distinguish it from other vireos.Enemies.?Probably the principal reason for the almost completedisappearance of this and other vireos from our New England urbanand suburban districts has been the wholesale spraying of our shadetrees. Ludlow Griscom (1923) wrote of the New York City region:"Our handsomest Vireo was formerly a common summer residentthroughout the area from early May to the middle of September.While many of us had noted a slow but steady decrease in numbers inthe last 20 years, no one was prepared for the sudden and rapid dis-appearance of this species since 1917 over the whole suburban section, YELLOW-THROATED VIREO 287where it is now a rare bird." And more recently Bagg and Eliot ( 1937)write : "In the early years of this century, the shade trees it so lovedwere persistently sprayed with poison for the elm beetle, gypsy moth,etc. Many Vireo-nests were ruined and many Yellow-breasts died fromeating poisoned larvas. The bird became uncommon and has remainedlocal." It is hard to believe, and impossible to prove, that the birds,once so common here, have all perished from eating poisoned larvae;it seems likely that some have been forced to look elsewhere for theiraccustomed food, which they fail to find in tlieir former foraginggrounds ; however, there are plenty of unsprayed trees, teeming withcaterpillars and beetles, in all of our towns; but tlie vireos do not seemto have found them. There is some other reason, which we do notunderstand, that has caused the loss of this beautiful vireo.Dr. Friedmann (1929) had reports of some 50 cases, from a numberof different States, in which the yellow-throated vireo had beenimposed upon by cowbirds, and says that the vireo occasionally buriesthe cowbird's eggs in the lining of the nest, if it has no eggs of its ownat the time. Edward K. Ford writes to me from Michigan : "I amreasonably certain that nests started after the first week in June werethose of birds whose first attempt was unsuccessful, and that failure inthe first instance was due to the cowbird. Of five successful nests, thelast feeding of the young in the nest was observed May 31, June 8, July15, July 23, and August 10, respectively. It w^ill be noted that in threecases success was attained after the end of the cowbird's laying cyclewhich, here, seems to be about July 1. The two low nests mentionedabove were parasitized. One of these was deserted after two cowbird'seggs had been removed; the other after the intrusion of two cowbird'seggs and the ejection of one of the eggs of the vireo."Harold S. Peters (1936) mentions two external parasites, a louse,Myrsidea incerta (Kellogg), and a mite, Megninia tyr^elli (Haller),that have been found on this vireo.Fall.?During the fall migration yellow-throated vireos wanderabout quite extensively and are likely to be seen almost anywhere thatthere are trees and in many places where they were not to be foundduring the breeding season. They sing more or less in Septemberand are then more in evidence than the silent migrants. Their migra-tion is evidently leisurely, for though most of them leave New Eng-land in September or earlier, Mr. Skutch tells me that he has not seenthem in Costa Rica before October 20. Mr. Forbush (1929) says: "Wlien the single brood has been raised the parents take them to theberry pastures and they pass the molting season amid the fruitingthickets and are ready for their long southward journey by Sep-tember, if not before."Winter.?Mr. Skutch writes to me : "The yellow-throated vireo win-ters throughout the length of Central America, from Guatemala to 288 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMPanama, on both coasts and in the mountainous interior up to an alti-tude of (rarely) 5,000 feet. It is at home in a variety of habitats,ranging from the heavy rain-forest to the low, thorny scrub and cactiof such arid regions as the middle Motagua Valley in Guatemala andthe coast of El Salvador. In most parts of its wide and varied winterrange it is far from abundant; but on February 1, 1935, I found itrather common in the arid scrub and low, open woodland near Cutuco,on the dry coast of El Salvador. Among the shade trees of the greatcoffee plantations on the Pacific slope of Guatemala, between 2,500 and3,500 above sea level, I found it present during the winter months insomewhat greater numbers than in most parts of its Central Americanrange?3^et still far from common. These vireos do not form flocks ; and one almost never sees two together; but individuals may attachthemselves loosely to mixed flocks of small birds."DISTEIBUTIONRange.?Southern Canada to Colombia.Breeding range.?The yellow-throated vireo breeds north to south-ern Manitoba (Aweme and Hillside Beach, probably, and Winnipeg) ;southern Ontario (Kenora, possibly, South Magnatawan, Beaumarais,and Ottawa) ; southern Quebec (Pelissier, Montreal, and Hatley) ;and central Maine (Ripogenus, Dover-Foxcroft, and Calais). East toMaine (Calais and Portland) ; the Atlantic Coast States to aboutcentral Florida (New Smyrna and Glencoe) . South to Florida (NewSmyrna, Oxford, Brooksville, and very rarely to Pensacola) ; southernMississippi (Pearlington) ; southeastern Louisiana (New Orleansand Thibodaux) ; and central Texas (Houston and Kerrville). Westto central Texas (Kerrville and Gainesville) ; eastern Oklahoma(Hartshorne, Tulsa, and Copan) ; eastern Kansas (Winfield, Topeka,and Manhattan) ; eastern Nebraska (Red Cloud and Greeley) ; easternSouth Dakota (Yankton and Sioux Falls) ; eastern North Dakota(Hankinson, Fargo, and the Turtle Mountains) ; and southern Mani-toba (Aweme). From the records it appears that within the lastgeneration the yellow-throated vireo has extended its range south-ward or at least has increased in members in the southern part of itsbreeding range.Winter range.?In winter the yellow-throated vireo is found northto southern Veracruz (Tres Zapotes and Santecomapam) ; Yucatan(Chichen-Itza) ; and Quintana Roo (Cozumel Island). East toQuintana Roo (Cozumel Island and Chunyache) ; British Honduras(Toledo district) ; eastern Guatemala (Gualan) ; eastern Nicaragua(Bluefields) ; Costa Rica (Guapiles) ; Panama (Boquete), and Colom-bia (Santa Marta district and Perico). South to Colombia (Perico YELLOW-THROATED VIREO 289and Santa Elena). West to Colombia (Santa Elena); Panama(Garachine) ; Costa Rica (San Jose and Liberia) ; western Guatemala(San Jose and Colombia) ; Chiapas (Huehuetan) ; and Veracruz(Tres Zapotes).Migration.?Late dates of spring departure are: Panama?BarroColorado, March 12. Costa Rica?Valley of El General, April 16. EiSalvador?San Salvador, April 8. Guatemala?Moca, March 6.British Honduras?Mountain Cow, April 14. Mexico?Chiapas; SanBenito, March 12. Cuba?Habana, April 11. Florida?Fort Myers,April 3.Early dates of spring arrival are: Florida?Pensacola, March 11.Georgia?Beachton, March 19. South Carolina?Charleston, March21. North Carolina?Statesville, March 27. Virginia?Lawrence-ville, April 4. District of Columbia, Washington, April 1. Pennsyl-vania?Beaver, April 26. New York?Watertown, April 29. Massa-chusetts?Boston, May 4. Vermont?Wells River, May 2. NewHampshire?East Westmoreland, May 2. Louisiana?Rigolets,March 2. Tennessee, Memphis, March 28. Kentucky?BowlingGreen, April 15. Illinois?Olney, April 18. Ohio?Columbus, April18. Michigan?Ann Arbor, April 25. Ontario?London, May 5.Missouri?St. Louis, April 10. Iowa?Keokuk, April 26. Wiscon-sin?Madison, April 29. Minnesota?Lanesboro, April 27. Texas?Kerrville, March 15. Kansas?Manhattan, April 22. North Dakota ? Argusville, May 15.Late dates of fall departure are : North Dakota?Fargo, September6. Kansas?Lawrence, September 29. Texas?Fredericksburg, Octo-ber 15. Minnesota?St. Paul, September 27. Wisconsin?New Lon-don, September 20. Iowa?National, October 3. Michigan?Detroit,September 23. Indiana?Notre Dame, October 11. Ontario?Guelph,October 10. Ohio?Youngstown, October 4. Kentucky?Danville,October 6. Tennessee?Nashville, October 7. Arkansas?Jonesboro,October 6. Mississippi?Ariel, October 14. Louisiana?New Orleans,October 11. New Hampshire?Jaffrey, September 5. MassachusettsWilliamstown, September 20. New York?Rhinebeck, October 2.Pennsylvania?Harrisburg, October 4. North Carolina?Arden, Oc-tober 10. South Carolina?Spartanburg, October 8. GeorgiaAthens, October 14. Florida?Gainesville, November 12.Early dates of fall arrival are : Florida?Pensacola, September 3.Cuba?Habana, August 31. Mexico?Yucatan?Chiclien Itza, Octo-ber 6 ; Oaxaca?Tepanatepec, October 27. Guatemala?Colomba, Sep-tember 30. El Salvador?Divisadero, October 3. Nicaragua?Grey-town, October 4. Costa Rica?San Jose, October 4. Canal ZoneNew Culebra, November 3.Casual records.?A specimen of the yellow-throated vireo was col- 290 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMlected at Flatts, Bermuda, on March 24, 1931 ; another was collectedin Nevada at Crystal Spring, Pahranagat Valley, Lincoln County, onMay 29, 1932.Egg dates.?Arkansas : 3 records, April 24 to July 4.Massachusetts : 19 records. May 16 to June 14 ; 14 records, May 30to June 9, indicating the height of the season.New York: 20 records. May 24 to June 30; 16 records. May 31 toJune 14. VIREO SOLITARIUS SOLITARIUS (Wilson)BLUE-HEADED VIREOHABITSThe yellow-throated vireo may be more brilliantly colored, withits bright yellow throat, but, to my mind, the subject of this sketch isthe handsomest of the vireos. His gray-blue head is accented by apair of pure-white spectacles, eye rings, and loral stripes ; in markedcontrast are his olive-green back, his pure-white throat and breast,and his yellow sides. The soft color tones combine to make a mostcharming picture of pleasing loveliness. He appears to be a well-groomed aristocrat among birds. In addition, his song is delight-fully rich and varied, to which we always stop and listen. And hisgentle, trustful manners, as we try to stroke him on the nest, haveendeared him to all who know him. He is a lovely and a lovable bird.I had seen the blue-headed vireo as a migrant in southeastern Mas-sachusetts, but it was some years before I came to know it as a breed-ing bird; this was mainly because I did not Imow where to look for it,until one of my rivals in egg collecting reported finding a nest in agrove of white pines {Pinus strobus). Since then we have learned tolook for it in the white-pine woods, with which this section of theState is well supplied. It is a forest-loving bird, and we practicallynever find it breeding anywhere but in woods where these pines orhemlocks make solid stands or at least predominate; often, however,such woods contain scattering growths of gray birches, wild appletrees, or sapling hardwoods of various kinds, in which the vireos liketo build their nests.It may be purely accidental, but it is an interesting fact that wehave often found the blue-headed vireo nesting in a tract of pinesoccupied by a pair of breeding Cooper's hawks; I find six such casesrecorded in my notes, and once the vireo's nest was within 50 feet ofthe occupied hawk's nest ; but we have never found this vireo nestingin similar woods where sharp-shinned hawks were breeding. Wenever saw anything to indicate that the Cooper's hawks ever harmedthe vireos, or their young, but it might have been different with thesharpshins! Perhaps the vireos have learned to trust the larger BLUE-HEADED VIREO 291Accipiters. They evidently prefer the same type of woodland as thehawks; hence this apparent community of interest. I once found apair of blue-headed vireos building a nest in a similar tract of pinewoods where a pair of barred owls had a nest.In the Allegany State Park, New York, Aretas A. Saunders (1938)says that "they inhabit both the Maple-Beech-Hemlock forest andthe areas modified for camping, and seem to be rather more commonon the campaign areas or about their edges, apparently liking theedge of the open area and having no fear of man's presence. Wheremuch undergrowth is removed, however, they do not occur, as thereare then no nesting sites near the ground, and it is my experience thatthe nest is rarely placed very high."Leonard Wing (1939) says that, in the Upper Peninsula of Michi-gan, "the Blue-headed Vireo lives in the heavier growth of JackPine."Spring.?The spring migration of the blue-headed vireo seems tobe quite prolonged. Alexander f\ Skutcli tells me that few are seenin Central America after April 19, only one being seen after that onthe 28th. Yet the species arrives in Massachusetts around the middleof that month, Forbush's (1929) earliest date being April 11. Welook for them in numbers before the end of April, in the vanguard ofthe migrating hosts of small birds, along with the black-throatedgreen and yellow warblers, the towhee, catbird, and brown thrasher,but at least a week ahead of the other vireos.Territory.?Mr. Saunders (1938) writes:One differGnce in habit between this bird and the red-eyed vireo is that ofwandering about when singing, apparently with no fixed singing tree. Thishabit malies it difiicult to determine territory and to get a definite count ofbirds. This would be more difficult if it were not for individual differences insongs. This wandering habit keeps singing birds moving about over a con-siderable area, and I have known them to sing now and then in the same treein which a red-eyed vireo sings regularly. In such cases there is no jealousyor animosity shown on the part of either species. Such observations leave meholding some doubts about the territory theory, both in vireos and some otherbirds. It would seem that the two sjiecies should be rivals for food, nest sitesand nesting materials. Yet their territories, if they have such, fi'equently overlapwith no hostility between them, at least in late summer. If there is some sortof territory in this species, it seems to be larger than that of the red-eyed vireo.Singing males are not very close together, and nests not near each other.Courtship.?Dr. Charles W. Townsend (1920) says: "Twice I havebeen favored with a sight of the courtship performance. The malepuffs out his yellow flank feathers very conspicuously and bobs andbows to the female, very slim in contrast, and sings repeatedly mean-while with many variations to his song."In a patch of swampy woods back of a pine grove, I once watcheda pair of blue-headed vireos for a considerable length of time andfollowed them about, as they seemed to be making love to each other ; 292 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMthe female was in the lead, but the male was not far behind her, dis-playing his charms. He sang his loud, rich, two-note song, so muchlike the song of the yellow-throated vireo in tone, at regular intervals.But he varied it occasionally, especially when near his mate, with aseries of sweet, warbling notes in a subdued tone, cher wee^ sweech,sweech, sweech, to which she generally replied in a similar strain, asthey came together for an interchange of caresses. Near there I foundtheir new nest.Nesting.?All the nests of the blue-headed vireo, at least a dozen,that my companions and I have found in eastern Massachusetts havebeen in, or on the borders of, white-pine woods, seldom in clear, thickstands of Pinus strohus., but more often in mixed woods of pines,hemlocks, oaks, and other deciduous trees where the pines or hemlockspredominated. I find only two exceptions to this rule in the literature.C. W. and J. H. Bowles ( 1892) , of Ponkapog, Mass., report a nest that"was about eight feet from the ground on the lowest branch of athirty-foot live oak. This was in a grove of other oaks of the samesize. This, we think, is an exceptional case, as all our other nests werebuilt in coniferous trees." And Dr. T. M. Brewer (Baird, Brewer,and Kidgway, 1874) says : "In the summer of 1870 a pair built theirnest in a dwarf pear-tree, within a few rods of my house."F. H. Kennard reports, in his field notes, a nest 12 feet from theground in a small pine, and Owen Durfee's notes record a nest thatwas 26 feet up and 10 feet out from the trunk of a large pine. He andI once found a nest, 514 feet from the ground, in a white-cedar saplingunder a large hemlock in swampy mixed woods. Mr. Kennard's notesmention one that was only 4 feet up in a small hemlock under somelarge pines. All our other local nests were in saplings of deciduoustrees, mostly oaks, but also gray birch, beech, hickory, and walnut.The lowest was 3I/2 feet up in an oak sapling and the highest 20 feetin a slender oak.Farther north the nests are generally built in coniferous trees,Mr. Kennard's notes mention a nest at Averill, Vt., that was about6 feet up in a slim spruce on the bank between a trail and a stream,and one at Duck Lake, Maine, in a spruce. Eobie W. Tufts writes tome from Nova Scotia: "With but one exception, all nests of thisspecies have been found in coniferous trees of various kinds. Thesingle exception was a nest found in a wild apple tree. Conifers wereclose by."Dr. Wing (1939) writes: "June 26, 1932, 1 found a nest under con-struction at the Lake Superior State Forest, twenty-six miles north-west of Newberry, Michigan. The birds had chosen a thirty-five-footJack Pine tree for attaching the pensile nest, which was in the forkof a horizontal branch twenty feet from the ground and three feetfrom the trunk of the tree. Lichens and shreds of birch bark com- BLUE-HEADED VIREO 293posed the framework of the nest, and thin dry grasses served forlining."Mr. Saunders ( 1938) says of the nests of the bhie-headed vireo in theAllegany State Park, New York : They range from four to 30 feet from the ground ; in fact, with the exceptionof one nest in an area of mature timber on Red House creek, all nests I haveseen have been ten feet or less from the ground. They are placed in beech,sugar maple, yellow birch and hornbeam trees and probably other species, butthese species are most abundant in the forest and therefore most commonly used.I think the bird does not have any special preference for one species overanother.The nests are indistinguishable from those of other vireos. Under naturalconditions they are composed of bark, leaves, bits of moss and some grasses,strips of yellow bii'ch bark, in this region, being a conspicuous material. Aboutcamps they frequently use paper, and are evidently just as fond of newspaperas is the rod-eyed vireo. Tissue paper, cellophane and a piece of chewing gumwrapper have all been found in the nests. One nest was gaudy with strips ofcolored tissue paper that had been supplied to the birds by a student at theschool. One nest back on the mountainside that had no such artificial materials,had three porcupine quills woven into its rim.C. M. Jones (1887), of Eastford, Conn., found three nests in laurelbushes, between 8 and 7 feet above the ground, and one suspendednear the end of a long horizontal branch of a hemlock tree, about 5feet from the ground. Most of the nests reported by others havebeen almost, or quite, within reach from the ground.The hanging, basketlike nests of the blue-headed vireo, like those ofother vireos, are suspended by their upper rims, often none too se-curely, from the supporting twigs. The nest may be at the forkedend of a long, slender branch of a tree, between the prongs of aforked twig, or between two twigs projecting side by side from theupright stem of a sapling; and it is almost always close to where theprongs start to fork, or close to tlie stem of an upright.The nests that I have seen vary considerably in size, neatness, andkind of materials used in their composition. Most of the materialsmentioned in the above descriptions are likely to be found in one oranother of the nests. Brief descriptions of three nests before me willillustrate some of the variations. One nest, built early in the season,is not beautiful but is one of warmest and coziest cradles for an earlybrood of vireos that I have seen; the body of the nest is made mainlyof strips of inner bark of grapevine, various soft plant fibers, manyfine rootlets, pieces of thread and fine grasses, mixed with lichens,bits of mosses, bunches of rabbit hair, bits of cotton and soft feathers,including a large downy feather of a great horned owl ; it is neatlylined with some peculiar hairlike filaments, light yellow and red at thebase, which I think are the roots or stems of club mosses; on thislining are a few small downy feathers, a little cow hair, and a littlerabbit fur. 294 BULLETIN 197, tJNITljjD STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMThe second might be considered an average nest, built in July andvery insecurely attached to a forked twig of a swamp white oak ; it isprettily made of strips of inner bark of various kinds, bits of lichens,and mosses and decorated externally with many pieces of paper fromthe nests of wasps or hornets and a few spider nests ; it is profuselylined with fine needles of the white pine. It measures about 31/2by 3 inches in external diameter and about 214 inches in external depth ; the inner cavity is about IV2 inches in depth and about 2 by 21/4 inchesacross the top, with very little overhang.The third came to me from Lancaster, N. H., taken by Fred B.Spaulding. It is the largest, most compactly built, and handsomestnest that I have seen of this species, perhaps more typical of northernnests than of those with which I am familiar. It is securely attachedto two diverging twigs close to the upright stem of a sapling with aquantity of usnea and fine strips of outer bark of the yellow birch.The bulk of the nest is made up largely of various lichens and mosses,mixed with bits of small dry leaves, bits of fine string, and spider nests,all apparently firmly interwoven with narrow strips of the outer barkof the yellow birch, with which tlie exterior of the nest is profuselydecorated. It is smoothly lined with very fine grass tops and a fewhairlike rootlets. Externally it measures about 3 by 3i/4 inches indiameter and 314 inches in depth ; internally it measures about 2 by1% in diameter and about ly^ inches in depth, the walls being veryfirm and thick. The above measurements do not include the extentto which some of the loose streamers of the birch bark hang below andaround the nest.I have twice watched blue-headed vireos building their nests. Bothof the pair help in this work, though the female seems to do most of itand to be the dominant influence, the male's part consisting mainly ofbringing material. At the beginning of the nest a few hanging loopsof soft fibers are attached at both ends to the supporting twigs; asthese increase and the bag is formed, the ends are securely bound tothe twigs by strips of usnea or fine shreds of inner grapevine bark,forming the rim of the nest; some spider web may be used for tliispurpose, but it does not seem to be much in evidence in the nests thatI have seen ; apparently the bluehead does not use so much of it as doother vireos. The rest of the material is worked in between the hang-ing loops, and finally the lining is added and the interior is shapedby the turning of the bird's body in it. The birds are very apt todesert an unfinished nest, if watched, as happened in the two cases thatI observed.Eggs.?The blue-headed vireo lays three to five eggs in a set, usuallyfour. These are usually ovate in shape, but some are quite pointed.The ground color varies from pure white to creamy white. They arerather sparingly spotted or dotted, mostly near the large end, with BLUE-HEADED VIREO 295light brown, dark brown, reddish brown, or bhickish. The measure-ments of 50 eggs average 19.5 by 14.4 millimeters; the eggs showingthe four extremes measure 21.8 by 14.7, 19.6 by 15.3, 17.0 by 14.1, and18.1 by 13.4 millimeters.Incubation.?F. L. Burns (1915) says that the period of incubationis 10 to 11 days, but this must be based on insufficient information, forthe other vireos require a somewhat longer time ; no further data onthe subject seem available. Mr. Saunders (1938) remarks that hisexperience "indicates that the period of incubation is at least 11 dayslong, but, up to date there has been no opportunity to determine itslength definitely."Both parents share the duties of incubation and are devoted to thecare of the young. They change places on the nest at regular intervalsregardless of the near presence of human observers. Sometimes whenwe drive the female from the nest the male will take her place withina few feet of us. They are usually very close sitters and often mustbe lifted off the nest if we want to examine the eggs. Mr. Saunders(1938) says : "Changing places is accompanied by a call by which theincubating bird notifies its mate. The mate answers with the samecall, and comes immediately. Tlie call is a soft, rather, low-pitchedtrill, running downward in pitch at the end, like 'tiprrrrrr.' This callis interpolated in the song by some individuals."The male sings regularly v.hile incubating, and probably the femaledoes to some extent; Mr. Saunders (1938) remarks: "It is impossibleto distinguish sexes by plumage or by habits about the nest, and myobservation that the female sings is based on observing two birds, bothin song, one singing while incubating and the other answering fromnear-by trees."Dr. Cornelius Weygandt (1907) writes:The comradeship of the two during;- incubation had been very winning. As onesat upon the eggs the other would come flying swiftly to a dead limb above andthen drop to the little branch from which the nest swung, lauding not a foot awayfrom it. Here the incoming bird would mew, ever so caressingly, and the bird onthe nest would answer in the same low tone. Sometimes the interchange ofgreetings would be followed by interchange of positions, the sitting bird firstunsettling itself gently from the eggs and then flitting off to alight beside itsmate. The incomer would lift itself into the nest as deftly and then aftera few more mutual mews the relieved bird would be off to the oak-tops. Oncethe sitting bird, this time I suppose the male, sang while brooding on the nestwhen the other returned.Young.?Mr. Saunders (1938) says:Singing takes place all through the incubation and while the young are stillvery small, but it gradually ceases as the young grow larger, and is heard not atall after they are five or six days old, and is only resumed after they have beenout of the nest nearly a week and are able to shift for themselves. * * *When feeding young, the adults are rather more concerned than they arewhen incubating, perhaps not for themselves, but they do not entirely trust 296 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM a man near the young. An alarm call, used at such a time, is a protesting "shu shu shu shu shu." Even this note is gentle when compared with the alannnotes of most birds.Young are fed by both birds, chiefly on insects, of which span-worms are themost conspicuous and easily identified. One student observed a dragon fly fedto the young, wings and all. From her description it was apparently Aeschnaumhrosa, a fairly large species. It is not probable that a vireo could catcha fully matured adult dragon fly, but in the morning, when the insects have justemerged from the nymph stage, their wings are soft and they are incapable offlight, and easily caught.When the young are out of the nest, parents are still busy feeding them fora few days. At such times, if the young are near the ground, the parents stillshow little fear of man, and come to feed them in front of groups of people andcamera lenses.The very early and very late dates at which eggs have been foundsuggest that two broods are sometimes raised in a season, as seems tobe the case with the mountain vireo.Plumages.?The juvenal plumage of the blue-headed vireo is muchlike that of the adult in pattern, but the general coloration is duller.Dr. Dwight (1900) describes it, in part, as "above, drab, tinged withgreen, pileum and auriculars clrab-gray. * * * Below, pure white,tinged on flanks and crissum with primrose-yellow. Obscure super-ciliary stripe, loral and orbital regions white; a dusky anteorbitalstreak."The first winter plumage is acquired by a partial postjuvenal moltin August and September, which involves the contour plumage andthe wing coverts but not the rest of the wings nor the tail. In thisplumage the young bird is practically indistinguishable from theadult, though the head and back are more or less tinged with brownishand the white of the underparts is less pure. Both old and youngbirds usually, though perhaps not always, have a partial and irregularprenuptial molt in March and April, at which a few or more feathersare renewed on the head, back, throat, and breast.The sexes are practically alike in all plumages, though the colora-tion of the female is usually duller.Food.?The Biological Survey had 30G well-filled stomachs of theblue-headed vireos and 28 other stomachs only partially filled, onwhich Dr. Edward A. Chapin (1925) based his report on the food ofthis species. The animal matter, 96.32 percent of the entire food, con-sisted almost entirely of insects, the few spiders included amountingto 2.63 percent and the snails 0.25 percent. Lepidoptera, in all stages,were the largest items, averaging 38.8 percent for the whole year;caterpillars were eaten in greatest numbers in March (41.56 percent)and in Sejotember (40.39 percent) ; the greatest consumption of adultmoths came in July (18.38 percent). Hemiptera, true bugs, formedthe second largest item, averaging 20.13 percent for the year, stinkbugs (Pentatomidae) predominating. Dr. Chapin writes: BLUE-HEADED VIREO 297During tlie winter months hibernating pentatomids constitute one of the mostimportant sources of food for the blue-lieaded vireos, as shown by the Novemberand January percentages of 48.7 and 20.02, respectively. * * *Considering the enormous numbers of beetles available, it is somewhat sur-prising that not more are eaten. The blue-heads manage to seek out enough,however, to make up 13.51 percent of their entire diet. Of this, the ladybirdbeetles make up 4.88 percent, or more than a third. It is certain that there arenot a third as many ladybird beetles as all other beetles combined ; and thus itmust be considered that the blue-headed vireos, like the warbling, either findthese brilliantly colored forms in abundance in their environment or else makespecial search for them, a most undesirable habit economically. Roughly, asecond third of the total bulk is composed of the metallic wood borers, thelongicorns, and the click beetles. The remaining portion includes, among others,the weevils, which comprise 1.8 percent of the food.The average of Hymenoptera for the year was 6.86 percent, and offlies Diptera, 4.29 percent. Other insects eaten include stoneflies,dragonflies, grasshoppers, crickets, and locusts (6.56 percent for theyear).The small percentage of vegetable food was mostly "in the form offleshy fruits, such as wild grape, dogwood, viburnum, and waxmyrtle. No cultivated fruit was identified, and it is practically certainthat none is eaten." The average for the year was 3.68 percent, but inJanuary it formed nearly a quarter of the total food, 24.37 percent.Aaron C. Bagg (Bagg and Eliot, 1937) says: "The height of theBlue-head's migration coincides with the emergence of tent-cater-pillars. At Holyoke on May 10, 1926, 1 watched one of these Vireostake most of the young catei'pillars in one web, then fly to another andrepeat the heavy meal."Alexander F. Skutch writes to me: "Once in the highlands ofGuatemala I saw a blue-headed vireo pick up a very long caterpillar,possibly an inch in length. At first the bird seemed puzzled to knowwhat to do with it, and crossed to the other side of the tree with thelarva dangling from its bill. Here he laid it along a twig, held it therewith a foot, and took a few nibbles or tugs at it. Then he took it inhis bill again, still nearly or quite intact, and swallowed it whole. Thehabit of using the foot for holding food, while it is torn apart with thebill, appears to be very imperfectly developed among the vireos, buthas attained a high degree of efficiency in the related families of shrike-vireos (Vireolaniidae) and pepper-shrikes (Cyclarhidae)."The blue-headed vireo lives mainly in the trees of the forest andobtains most of its food among the twigs and foliage, where it gleansquietly and thoroughly. But Ora W. I^iight (1908) says: "I havealso on several occasions seen one of these birds spring into the airafter passing insects after the style of a Flycatcher, in fact this man-ner of feeding would seem to be more characteristic of this speciesthan of any other Vireos with which I am acquainted."Behavior.?One of the chief characteristics of the blue-headed843290?50 20 298 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM vireo is its tameness or fearlessness, or perhaps its confidence in manor its indifference to his presence. Its gentle demeanor when its nestis approached is in marked contrast to the aggressive tactics employedby some other vireos and by many other birds. There is seldom anyscolding or great excitement and no attempt at attack, but a bravedisplay of parental devotion. Many a bird-lover has enjoyed thethrill of stroking the incubating bird on its nest, or perhaps liftingit off without even being pecked in the attempt, and then seeing itsettle down in the nest again with apparent confidence. It is a gentlelittle parent that soon wins our admiration and our affection. Per-haps it will even sing almost in our faces as it returns. With patienceone may be persuaded to take food from our fingers when incubatingor brooding. But individuals are not all alike; some will quicklyleave the nest, if we come anywhere near it, and will not return toit while we are in the vicinity.With all its tameness and tolerance of humans, the blue-headedvireo is not a sociable bird ; it does not seek the company of man orthe security of our home grounds ; it is seldom seen in our yards andgardens or in the shade trees of village streets and city parks, excepton migrations. It is rather a recluse of the woodlands, the solitudesof the forests, often well hidden in the foliage of the tree tops ; we mustseek it there in its shady retreats, if we would make its acquaintance.If we follow the lead of its rich song, we may see it sitting quietlyon some outstanding branch near an opening or among the lowerbranches of a forest tree. It may remain in one spot for a long timeor move about very deliberately while feeding, for it is far less activein its movements than the smaller vireos. Quiet dignity and an airof calm repose seem to dominate its behavior in the security of itswoodland home.Voice.?Aretas A, Saunders contributes the following account ofthe music of this vireo : "The song of the blue-headed vireo is long-continued, made up of phrases separated by short pauses. It is thehighest in pitch of the common vireos of eastern United States, andof exceedingly sweet, clear quality. The phrases are delivered morerapidly than those of the yellow-throated vireo, but more slowlythan those of the redeye. On the whole it is the most pleasing of thevireo songs."From a study of the records from 37 individuals, the pitch variesfrom Eb ' ' ' ' to B' ', two tones more than an octave. The rate ofsinging is about one phrase to a second, or a second and a half. Thephrases themselves are delivered slowly, the slurred portions beinglong-drawn-out and strongly accented. Each individual uses 9 to 15different phrases. These are delivered in a varied order, which avoidsthe monotonous repetition found in the yellow-throated vireo. Phrasesare composed of two to six notes. Two-, three-, and four-note phrases BLUE-HEADED VIREO 299 are common, while five- and six-note ones are rather rare. The notesof tlie phrases are sometimes connected by shirring and sometimes byabrupt changes. In phrases of three or more notes both kinds ofchanges may occur in the same phrase. Such phrases are character-istic of the song, and a help in distinguishing it from other vireos.Such phrases may be written aweeto^ teeaytoay, taweetayo^ etc."On the breeding range in midsummer, this bird sometimes runs allits phrases together, omitting the pauses, producing a warble of 15 or20 notes, the song then suggesting that of the warbling vireo. Thissong is heard conmionly in the spring migration in April, and occa-sionally in fall in October."On the breeding grounds the period of song lasts till about the thirdweek in August. Then individuals cease singing for a time but revivethe song in late August. Definite dates are difficult to determine, how-ever, for some individuals revive the song before others have ceasedthe main period of singing. Where the species is common one or morebirds are likely to be heard in song every day in the summer."Francis H. Allen sends me the following notes : "I have heard fromboth birds of a pair, in June, a faint trumpetlike note uttered with thebill almost closed. Sometimes the note was sounded more emphati-cally with the bill opened a little more. It then had a more stridentcharacter. I have also heard the tin-trumpet note in August, some-times with a variant in two syllables, tee-iueh. The chatter of the blue-headed vireo resembles that of the yellow-throated but is not so loud."August 25, 1911?One feeding in trees in a drizzling rain utteredcontinually a rather harsh, nasal see-a^ sometimes more distinctly dis-syllable, like see-weep. Once he gave a succession of similar but shortnotes, like she-she-she-she-she. All the notes were more like the char-acteristic harsh note of the red-eye than the other call-notes I haveheard from this species. This may have been a young bird (so far ascould be seen in the rain and without a glass, it was not in full plu-mage), but it was well enough grown to take care of itself, and it wasalone."One cold afternoon with spits of snow in early May, one of twoblue-headed vireos in a hawthorn tree near my house sang sotto vocewith snatches of catbirdlike song, a trill, and, later, phrases of theregular song but faint."The following note from Mr. Skutch is interesting: "Contrary toprevalent impression, the majority of North American birds that win-ter in Central America may be heard singing here. Most of themrarely sing until the time for their northward departure approaches,yet a few are tuneful even in the midst of the northern winter. Con-spicuous among these are the yellow-throated and blue-headed vireos.With the possible exception of the orchard oriole, the blue-headedvireo is more songful while in Central America than any other of the 300 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM winter visitants. Early in January 1935 they sang much among theshade trees of the Finca Moca, a great coffee plantation on the Pacificslope at the base of the Volcan Atitlan. Their song resembled that ofthe red-eyed vireo but was sweeter and more varied and was inter-spersed with pleasing little warbles uttered in a low, soft voice. Onthe morning of January 13 all the blue-headed vireos I met, four innumber, were singing persistently. Of course, a singing bird is farmore likely to attract attention than one which is silent. At noon Icame upon two that were singing against each other from neighboringtrees. One repeated all the notes of the other, as if in rivalry. Theycontinued this as long as I stopped to listen but did not lose their tem-pers and clash, as so often happens under these circumstances. It israre to hear wintering birds sing in January and exceedingly rare tohear them sing so much as these vireos sang. "In the highlands I often heard the blue-headed vireos sing duringApril. When two came together they sang against each other like thebirds on the coffee plantation. Viree, one said; and other repeatedviree. Then the first called vireo; and vir^eo answered the second.They continued this pretty conversation for some minutes."Many years ago, when my hearing was good, I wrote down myimpression of the song as hwee^^^, with a rising inflection as in theredeye's song, or ^etOew, with a falling inflection ; sometimes there wasonly the kew, or a short keiveek; again there was a rich and full koi/week, or per cheet. The first combination was the commonest, but itwas often varied by the second.The literature contains many references to the beautiful song of theblue-headed vireo, but there is little that need be added to the aboveaccounts. William Brewster (1906) mentions an interesting bird that "had two songs, one perfectly characteristic of his own species, theother indistinguishable from that of the Yellow-throated Vireo. Thesesongs were invariably kept distinct, the notes of one never being inter-polated among those of the other; nor was the bird ever known tochange from one to the other save after a well-marked interval oftotal silence." Dr. Thomas S. Roberts (1932) writes:The sons is to be distinguished from the Red-eye's especially by two curiouscharacteristic phrases which are introduced at frequent inteiTals. These maybe recalled by tlie syllables wheop-tcu, the first note sharp and quick, the lastprolonged ; and the other couplet by the words johnny-cake, rapidly uttered.Later in the season, mid-July, the song may consist almost entirely of thesenotes and is then a curious medley of rvhcop-teu, whcop-teu, jolinny-cake, johnny-cake, wheop-teu, and so on, with now and then a few sweet, vireonine notes. Atthe end of the season, early in August, the whcop-teu call is all that remains andthis rings through the forest, an unmusical reminder of the beautiful song tobe heard no more until the coming of another nuptial awakening.Field marJcs.?It is only in the brightest light that the head of theblue-headed vireo appears at all blue, and then it is only a bluish BLUE-HEADED VIREO 301gray; in shadow, or at a distance, it appears a dark slate-color. Butthe pure white eye ring and the white stripe in front of the eye, the "spectacles," are conspicuous at considerable distance. On the nestthe gleaming white throat, in sharp contrast with the dark headmarkings, shows plainly above the rim of the nest. The two whitewing bars, which the red-eyed vireo lacks, the pure white breast, andthe yellow sides are good field marks.Enemies.?Undoubtedly some eggs and young are destroyed bypredators, such as blue jays, crows, chipmunks, squirrels, and perhapssnakes, as many rifled nests have been found. Based on my experi-ence, mentioned above. Cooper's hawks do not molest them even whennesting nearby; and Mr. Forbush (1929) says that the vireos alsonest in the same woods with goshawks and red-tailed and sharp-shinned hawks.The blue-headed vireo is a common victim of the cowbird ; if thecowbird's Qgg is laid before the vireo has laid any of her own, thevireo may cover it up and lay her eggs in the upper story ; Dr. Fried-mann (1929) says that the bluehead does this more often than theother vireos; but, after any of her own eggs are laid, she will notcover them. Unless the alien eggs are removed, the poor vireos willprobably raise only young cowbirds.Harold S. Peters (1936), in his list of external parasites, mentionscnly one tick {Haemaphysalis leforis-palustris Packard) found onthis vireo.Winter.?Krihuv T. Wayne (1910) says that "this vireo wintersabundantly in the great swamps which are in close proximity to our[South Carolina] coast. That it is a common bird in the months ofDecember, January, and February there is no question, for I haveoften seen and counted as many as ten individuals in the course of afew hours. On mild days in winter the birds sing with some vigor,but it is not until March that the full volume of song is heard."Arthur H. Howell (1932) says that, in Florida "in winter it isoften found in low, swampy thickets." Dickey and van Rossem(1938) say of the blue-headed vireo in El Salvador: "The center ofabundance of this very common winter visitant was along the upperedge of the Arid Lower Tropical Zone, in other words in the coffeedistricts at about 3,500 altitude. In numbers it compared favorablywith the warbling and Philadelphia vireos, but of course was muchmore in evidence. The smaller species are ordinarily silent or at leastdo not sing, but the familiar song of solitarious may be heard through-out the winter. This species, far more than the warbling and Phila-delphia vireos, was likely to accompany the composite flocks of visit-ing warblers."Mr. Skutch writes to me : "The blue-headed vireo winters in north- 302 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL IMUSEUMern Central America but lias not been recorded south of Nicaragua.In Guatemala it is abundant through the winter months. Avoidingextremes of altitude, it yet spreads over a wide vertical range, from2,000 to 9,000 feet above sea level. In December and January I foundit rather abundant among the shade trees of the coffee plantations onthe Pacific slope, at 3,000 to 4,000 feet above sea level. At higherelevations it frequents the forests of oak, alder, pine, and arbutus.During the year I passed on the Sierra de Tecpan in the Departmentof Chimaltenango, I found it wintering in small numbers between8,000 and 9,000 feet. True to its name soUtarius, it never forms com-panies of its own kind; yet it is not entirely a hermit, for a singleblue-headed vireo is often met in one of the mixed flocks of smallbirds that are so conspicuous a feature of the highlands during thewinter months. The nucleus of each flock is made up of the exces-sively abundant wintering Townsend warblers, and about this gathersa motley assemblage of Avarblers of other kinds, vireos, flycatchers,woodhewers, hairy woodpeckers, etc. Only with extreme rarity willthe blue-headed vireo which has attached itself to a flock tolerate thepresence of a second individual of its kind."On the Sierra de Tecpan, the blue-headed vireo arrived on October10, 1933. My latest spring date for the same year was April 28 ; butafter the 19tli I saw only this single individual. Griscom (1932)gives the extreme dates for the presence of this vireo in Guatemala asOctober 15 and April 27." DISTRIBUTIONRange.?North-central Canada to Nicaragua.Breeding range.?The solitary or blue-headed vireo breeds north tosouthern British Columbia (Comox, Puntchesakut Lake, and Six-teen-mile Lake) ; central western xilberta (Grand Prairie and PeaceRiver Landing) ; southwestern Mackenzie (Nahanni Eiver, Simpson,Hay Eiver, and Fort Smith) ; northeastern Alberta (Chippewyan) ; central Saskatchewan (Lake Ile-a-la-Crosse, Emma Lake, and HudsonBay Junction) ; central Manitoba (Grand Rapids and Knee Lake,probably) ; Ontario (Port Arthur, Moose Factory, Lake Abitibi,Algonquin Park, and Ottawa) ; southern Quebec (Blue Sea Lake,Quebec, Grand Greve, and probably Seven Islands) ; and extremesouthwestern Newfoundland (Tompkins). East to southwestern New-foundland (Tompkins;) ; Nova Scotia (Baddeck, Pictou, and Hali-fax) ; Maine (Calais, Ellsworth, and Portland) ; Massachusetts(Boston, Taunton, and New Bedford) ; Connecticut (New Haven)northern New Jersey (Lake Mashipacong) ; and south through the Ap-palachian Mountains to northern Georgia (Brasstown Bald, Ogle-thorpe Ridge, and Burnt Mountain) , In comparatively recent years BLUE-HEADED VIREO 303the mountain vireo of the southern Appahachians has extended itsrange to lower altitudes, and in North Carolina has been found breed-ing at Statesville and Charlotte, and a few times at Raleigh, and inGeorgia at Athens and Eound Oak. South to northern Georgia (BurntMountain), northeastern Ohio (Ashtabula); extreme southern On-tario (Point Pelee) ; southeastern Michigan (Rochester) ; southernWisconsin (Racine, North Freedom, and Prairie du Sac) ; centralMinnesota (North Pacific Junction, Brainerd, and Itaska State Park) ;northern North Dakota (Pembina and Turtle Mountains) ; easternWyoming (Sundance and Laramie) ; central Colorado (Boulder, Den-ver, Colorado Springs, and Trinidad); central New Mexico (SantaFe, Las Vegas, and San Antonio) ; western Texas (Guadelupe Moun-tains, Davis Mountains, and Brewster County) ; northern Chihuahua(San Diego and Pachico) ; central Sonora (Moctezuma) , and northernLower California (Sierra San Pedro Martir). A resident race isfound in the Cape district of Lower California. West to northernLower California (Sierra San Pedro Martir) ; western California(Campo, Pasadena, Almaden, Oakland, and Eureka) ; western Oregon(Coos Bay, Corvallis, the mountains near Tillamook, and Portland) ;western Washington (Vancouver, Seattle, Lake Crescent, and Belling-ham) ; and western British Columbia (Victoria, Comox, and Punt-chesakut Lake) . Winter ra?i(/e.?In winter the solitary vireo is found north to north-ern Michoacan (Cerro Patamban and Zamora) ; possibly north tosouthern Sonora (Tesia) ; Puebla (Metaltoyuca) ; Nuevo Leon (Mon-terrey) ; southern Texas (Llarlingcn, Houston, Cove, and Silsbee) ;southern Louisiana (Avery Island and New Orleans) ; southern Mis-sissippi (Biloxi) ; southern Alabama (Prattville, occasionally) ; Geor-gia (Milledgeville and casually to Atlanta and Athens) ; and southernSouth Carolina, casually (Aiken, Summerville, and Charleston).East to coastal South Carolina (Charleston and Port Royal) ; Georgia(Savannah and St. Marys) ; Florida (St. Augustine, New Smyrna,and Royal Palm Park) ; Quintana Roo (Chunyaxche), and El Salva-dor (Mount Cacaquatique) ; and occasionally to northern Nicaragua(San Rafael del Norte) . South to El Salvador. West to El Salvador(Mount Cacaquatique and Barra de Santiago) ; Guatemala (Duenasand Huehuetenango) ; Oaxaca (Tehuantepec and Juquila) ; Guerrero(Tlalixtaquilla and Chilpancingo) ; Michoacan (Cerro Patamban) ;the Cape region of Lower California (Cape San Lucas), and possiblysouthern Sonora (Tesia), and in small numbers in the vicinity ofTucson, Ariz. ; a single record of winter occurrence at Pasadena, Calif.It is a rare migrant of winter resident in western Cuba (Habana).The ranges as outlined apply to the species as a whole, which hasbeen separated into five subspecies or geographic races. The typicalrace, the blue-headed vireo ( V. s. soUtarius) , breeds from southwestern 304 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL IVIUSEUMMackenzie eastward and south to central Alberta, southern Manitoba,northern Minnesota, southeastern Michigan, northeastern Ohio, Mas-sachusetts, and the mountains of central West Virginia and Pennsyl-vania; the mountain vireo (F. s. alticola) breeds in the Appalachianregion from southern West Virginia and Virginia to Georgia; theplumbeous vireo (F. s. plumheus) from northeastern Nevada, Utah,and southern Montana south to Arizona and northern Sonora, westernTexas, and the mountains of Chihuahua and Veracruz ; Cassin's vireo(F. s. cassini) breeds from central British Columbia, southeasternAlberta, and northwestern Montana, through Idaho, western Nevada,and California to northern Lower California; the San Lucas vireo(F. 5. lucasanus) is resident in the Cape district of Lower California.Other races are resident in Central America.Migration.?Late dates of spring departure are : Guatemala?Tec-pam, April 28. Mexico?Guerrero?Chilpancingo, April 20. Ta-maulipas?Victoria, May 1. Florida?College Point, April 23.South Carolina?Aiken, April 22. Virginia?Naruna, May 4. Dis-trict of Columbia?Washington, June 2. Pennsylvania?Doyles-town. May 24. New York?Orient, May 3. Louisiana?Grand Isle,April 6. Mississippi?Biloxi, April 14. Arkansas?Winslow, May8. Missouri?Columbia, May 28. Indiana?Bloomington, May 17.Early dates of spring arrival are : Georgia?Dalton, March 8. SouthCarolina?Spartanburg, ISIarch 26. North Carolina?Raleigh, March9. West Virginia?White Sulphur Springs, April 1. District of Co-lumbia?Washington, April 6. Pennsylvania?Berwyn, April 8.New York?New York, April 16. Massachusetts?Amherst, April 19.Maine?Ellsworth, April 21. Nova Scotia?Wolfville, April 25. NewBrunswick?Scotch Lake?May 2. Quebec?Montreal, May 3. Ten-nessee?Knoxville, April 4. Illinois?Chicago, April 27. Ohio ? Sandusky, April 14. Michigan?Ann Arbor, May 1. OntarioHamilton, April 25. Missouri?St. Louis, April 20. Iowa?Marshall-town, April 29. Wisconsin?Madison, May 2. Minnesota?Red Wing,May 1. Kansas?Harper, April 26. Manitoba?Aweme, May 2. NewMexico?Chloride, April 26. Colorado?Boulder, April 18. Wyo-ming?Laramie, May 7. Montana?Columbia Falls, April 26. Al-berta?Glenevis, May 8. ISIackenzie?Simpson, May 22. Utah?St.George, April 16. Idaho?Coeur d'Alene, April 19. CaliforniaTwenty-nine Palms, March 24. Oregon?Pinehurst, April 15. Wash-ington?Shelton, April 8. British Columbia?Courtenay, April 3.Late dates of fall departure are: British Columbia?OkanaganLanding, September 15. Washington?Seattle, September 10. Ore-gon?Eugene, October 13. California?Santa Barbara, November 7.Alberta?Islay, October 1. Montana?Fortine, September 18. Wyo-ming?Laramie, October 16. Utah?Ogden, October 6. Colorado,Beulah, October 17. Manitoba?Aweme, September 30. Minnesota MOUNTAIN VIREO 305St. Paul, October G. Iowa?Iowa City, October 15. Missouri?Co-lumbia, October 20. Arkansas?Hot Springs, November 1. Wiscon-sin?Beloit, October 19. Michigan?Blaney Park, October 8. On-tario?Toronto, October 20, Ohio?Toledo, October 27. Indiana ? Indianapolis, October 2. Kentucky?Bowling Green, November 4.Tennessee?Nashville, November 9. Newfoundland?Tompkins, Sep-tember 18. New Brunswick?Scotch Lake, October 22. QuebecMontreal, October 6. Maine?Dover-Foxcroft, October 27. Ver-mont?Wells Eiver, October 19. Massachusetts?Marthas Vineyard,October 25. New York?Rhinebeck, October 20. Pennsylvania?Phil-adelphia, November 4. District of Columbia?Washington, Novem-ber 5. West Virginia?Bluefield, October 27. Virginia?Lawrence-ville, November 13. North Carolina?Weaverville, November 24.Early dates of fall arrival are : Minnesota?Lanesboro, August 24.Iowa?Hillsboro, August 23. Ohio?Oberlin, September 12. Il-linois?Glen Ellyn, September 10. Arkansas?Monticello, August 29.Louisiana?Thibodaux, August 21. Mississippi?Oxford, October 2.District of Columbia?Washington, September 6. Virginia?Naruna,August 12. South Carolina?Charleston, October 23. GeorgiaRound Oak, October 7. Alabama?Greensboro, October 23. Flor-ida?Pensacola, September 21. Mexico?Guerrero, Taxco, October 10.Guatemala?Tecpan, October 10.Egg dates.?Arizona : 15 records. May 20 to July 9.California : 100 records, April 26 to July 9 ; 52 records, May 20 toJune 6, indicating the height of the season.Massachusetts : 57 records, May 14 to July 29 ; 32 records. May 30to June 18.North Carolina : 16 records, April 12 to June 16 ; 8 records, April 18to May 9.Washington : 37 records, May 1 to July 3 ; 20 records, June 3 to 16.VIREO SOLITARIUS ALTICOLA BrewsterMOUNTAIN VIREOHABITSThe mountain vireo deserves its name as an inhabitant of the moun-tains and adjacent valleys of the Appalachian Mountain system, themost typical birds being found in western North and South Carolina,eastern Tennessee, and northern Georgia. The 1931 Check-list extendsthe range northward to Maryland, but probably alticola intergradeswith typical soUtaHus somewhere in Maryland, the Virginias, andPennsylvania. Prof. Maurice Brooks, in some notes he has sent me,points out the folly of trying to define too closely the ranges of sub-species by "creating an artificial barrier on the political boundarymade famous by Mason and Dixon. * * * The situation as re- 306 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMgards tliese vireos is exactly paralleled by slate-colored and Carolinajuncos, and by black-throated blue and Cairns's warblers ; in each casethe southern birds are supposed to just reach the Pennsylvania border,where they are met by their northern relatives. It happens that allthree species are abundant in the moimtains on both sides of the line,and it is obvious that no sharp limits between the races can be defined ; there is constant meeting and interbreeding."I have sometimes been criticized because we have not attempted inthis series of bulletins to outline accurately the ranges of the sub-species; the above remarks illustrate very clearly the futility of tryingto do so in nearly all cases ; in only a few isolated instances can thisbe done satisfactorily.The summer range of the mountain vireo in the regions roughly out-lined above extends from about 1,200 feet above sea level in the valleysto over 6,000 feet on mountain summits. In winter it retires fromthe mountains and lives in the lowlands of South Carolina, Georgia,and northern and central Florida.William Brewster (1886) described and named this subspecies fromspecimens collected in Macon County, N. C. He says : This new form may be easily distinguished from soUtariiis by its larger size,heavier bill, and different color of the upper parts. In solita7-ius the crown andsides of the head are clear, pure ash, in strong contrast with the olive green of theback and rump, whereas in alticola the entire upper parts are nearly uniformblackish-plumbeous, with only a faint tinge of greenish on the back, which isessentially concolor with the crown. In these respects the bird resembles V.plumhcihs, but its coloring above is darker and dingier, its sides strongly yellow-ish as in solitarius. * * *Throughout the elevated plateau occupying the southeastern corner of ISIaconCounty, this new Vireo was one of the most abundant forest birds. It was foundexclusively in open oak and chestnut woods, where its ringing voice, minglingwith the rich music of the equally numerous Grosbeaks (Hahia ludoviciana) andScarlet Tanagers {Piranga eryihromclas), was rarely still oven at noontide.Professor Brooks says in his notes: "Mountain vireos are character-istic and abundant birds of the southern highlands, found from thezone of spruce and balsam down to elevations of 1,200 or 1,500 feet inthe mountain valleys. I have not fovind them at corresponding eleva-tions away from the mountains, however; the common name seemsabundantly justified."Bruce P. Tyler (MS.) tells me where he finds this vireo in easternTennessee : "With us the ideal home of the mountain vireo is ShadyValley, in Johnson County, Tenn. This lovely valley is located be-tween Holston and Iron Mountains. The floor of the valley is 3,000to 2,500 feet elevation, decreasing as it departs from the upper reachesof Beaver Dam Creek and extends to 'Back Bone Rock' near Mock'sMill, about 10 miles as the crow flies. The valley is flanked by moun-tains with ultimate elevations approacliing 4,000 feet; and, beyondIron Mountain, we have White Top and Mount Rodgers, with eleva- MOUNTAIN VIREO 307tions of 5,678 and 5,719 feet, respectively. These higher peaks reachwell into the Canadian Zone. These sunnnits seem, by their proximity,to lend something of the Canadian Zone flavor to Shady Valley.The flora of the valley smacks of the Canadian Zone. Originally thebed of the valley was a cranberry bog. Overmuch 'civilization,'W. P. A., etc., have drained and cleared it until, only by closest searchcan any cranberry vines be found. The mountain vireo breeds in theupper reaches of the Transition Zone and in the Canadian Zone."Mount Mitchell, in western North Carolina, is said to be the highestmountain in the eastern half of the United States, rising 6,684 feetabove sea level ; it was once covered with a dense forest of tall redspruce ; but logging and forest fires have destroyed all but a narrowfringe of spruces at the summit. Thomas D. Burleigh (1941) foundthe mountain vireo to be "a fairly plentiful breeding bird in the firand spruce woods at the top of the mountain. In the valleys the firstspring migrants appear during the latter part of March, but April12 (1930) is the earliest that this species has been noted in the openspruce woods (5,000 feet), and not until May 4 (1933) has the firstventuresome individual been seen at the top of the mountain (6,600feet). The latest date for occurrence in the fall is September 30,(1930)."Nesting.?Professor Brooks writes to me from West Virginia:"Woodland openings, trailsides, picnic grounds, and such natural orartificial disturbances of the forest are most frequently chosen as nest-ing areas by these birds. Yellow birch is a favorite nesting tree, theyellow-brown bark furnishing nesting material and, very often, aneffective concealing background for the nest. Nearly every nest I haveexamined has contained fibers of birch bark. Nests are placed from 6to 15 feet from the ground, usually just out of reach."Bruce P. Tyler tells me that, in his Shady Valley region, the nestof the mountain vireo "is placed in the fork of the lower branchesof a tree or a fork of a low branch of undergrowth in the woodland.It is more globular than the nests of the red-eyed or white-eyed vireoand somewhat larger." He has sent me a fine photograph (pi. 38)of a nest, taken in this valley on June 12, 1938. "This nest wasjDlaced in a red oak tree, 20 feet up and 7 feet out from the trunk of thetree. It was made of grass, shredded bark and plant fiber and coveredwith lichens, bound together with spider webs. The bird remained onthe nest until the limb which supported it was cut off." The nest con-tained four eggs which had been incubated for three or four days.Pearson and the Brimleys (1942) say that, in the mountains ofNorth Carolina, "it breeds chiefly in deciduous trees." They recordnests in a chestnut, a small sourwood, another chestnut, and an oak.Mr. Burleigh (1925) seems to be satisfied that, in northeasternGeorgia, "two broods are raised each year, the first during the latter 308 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMpart of April and early May, and the second in June." He saysfurther : Nests from which the young had already flown were found early in June,and my experience would certainly prove the later nestings. The first nestwith eggs was found June 14, holding on that date four well incubated eggs. Itwas twenty-five feet from the ground suspended from a fork at the outer endof a limb of a large hemlock close to a stream in a ravine, at the foot of Brass-town Bald. A second nest, found June 19, also held four well incubated eggsand was eighteen feet from the ground suspended from a fork at the outerend of a limb of a beech sapling well up the mountain side. The female wasincubating and was remarkably tame, remaining on the nest until the limb wascut off and the nest brought within reach, flying only when stroked on the back.A third nest found June 25 held one fresh egg and was later deserted. It wastwelve feet from the ground at the outer end of a limb of an uprooted ashsapling in a ravine probably half way up the mountain. These nests were allalike in construction, being compactly built of grasses, fragments of weed stemsand shreds of bark, lined with fine grasses, vine tendrils and fine hemlock twigs,and well covered on the outside with, in two cases, fragments of an old hornet'snest, and invariably numerous green lichens. * * * As confirming my opinionthat two broods are raised each year, I might add here the fact that a fourthnest was found July 15, in Fannin County, that held newly hatched young.Mr. Brewster (1888) received what was probably the first nest ofthis subspecies ever reported. It was taken by J. S. Cams on May 27,1887, on Craggy Mountain, Buncombe County, N. C. "It measuresexternally 3.25 in diameter by 2.10 in depth. In places the rim isnearly an inch in thickness. The exterior is beautifully diversifiedwith white and purplish-brown sheep's wool, grayish lichens, smallstrips and fragments of decayed wood, and a few spider's cocoons,bound firmly to, or hanging loosely from, the framework proper,which is composed of coarse grass stalks and strips of bark, the latterpartly a reddish-colored inner bark, probably from the hemlock, butlargely the pale gold, sheeny outer bark of the yellow birch {B. lutea) . The interior cavity is lined with fine bleached grasses and the reddishstems of some species of club moss."R. B. McLaughlin (1888), of Statesville, N. C, found two nests ofthe mountain vireo in some high, dry woods, consisting wholly ofpines, such as those in which the pine warbler nests. One nest was ina small, slim pine, and the other was "attached to the limb of a tall,slender pine, about forty feet from the ground and ten feet from thebody of the tree." On June 2, while the birds were building thefirst nest, they were followed by three young of a previous brood,which is further evidence that this vireo raises two broods in a season.Eggs.?The mountain vireo lays ordinarily three or four eggs, mostoften four in a full set, and perhaps rarely five, though I find norecord of five. These are similar to those of the northern bluehead,but averaging slightly larger. The ground color is sometimes creamyor pinkish white, and the spots are apt to be in lighter shades of PLUMBEOUS VIREO 309brown, sometimes almost reddish brown, with washed-oiit edges ; someeggs are more heavily marked than those of the northern bird. Themeasurements of 40 eggs average 19.7 by 14.5 millimeters; the eggsshowing the four extremes measure 21.6 by 14.3, 20.2 by 15.0, 18.4 by14.0, and 21.3 by 12.4 millimeters.The food of this vireo is included under the report on the type race,and the plumage changes, behavior, and voice are not materially dif-ferent from those of the blue-headed vireo. Many observers havepraised the beautiful song of the mountain vireo, but most of themhave compared it with the songs of the redeye or white-eye, which are,of course, inferior or at least less pleasing. But Mr. Brewster (1886)says: "Its song was somewhat like that of solitarius, but to my earmuch finer, many of the notes being louder and sweeter, and the wholeperformance more continuous and flowing." And Mr. Wayne (1910)states : "The song of this form is much richer in tone and volume thanthat of its near relative, the Blue-headed Vireo."A. L. Pickens thinks this vireo should have specific rating on themerits of its voice, and says in a letter to me: "The mountain vireotakes the standard vireo syllables, with all their distinctness, and addstwo syllables like an accompaniment blown on some woodland flute,and the most matter-of-fact oratory of the vireos becomes somethingworth climbing mountains and pushing through thickets to hear."VIREO SOLITARIUS PLUMBEUS ConesPLUMBEOUS VIREOHABITSAccording to the 1931 Check-list, this dull-colored vireo "breedsfrom northern Nevada, northern Utah, southern Montana, north-eastern Wyoming, and southwestern South Dakota south throughArizona and central western Texas to Chihuahua and the mountainsof Vera Cruz." It is thus the easternmost of the western races, andthere seems to be no breeding race of the species in the center of theUnited States, that is, the Mississippi Valley region. The species, as awhole, seems to prefer cool, northern forests, mountain regions, orthe cooler climate of the Pacific, to the hot dry interior of the country.Ridgway (1904) describes the plumbeous vireo as "similar to L. s.alticola^ but back and scapulars entirely gray ; rump and upper tail-coverts gray, tinged with olive-green, and sides and flanks much morefaintly washed with yellow." The color pattern is the same as in themountain vireo, the head being practically concolor with the back, butall the colors are much paler and grayer.The plumbeous vireo is essentially a bird of the mountains and themomitain canyons, during the breeding season. In the Huachuca and 310 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMthe Chiricahua Mountains in Arizona, we found it fairly common in allthe wooded canyons up to 7,000 feet, and less common among the pinesat 8,000 or 9,000 feet near the summits. We saw the first one in theChiricahuas on April 26, 1922. Mr. Swarth (1904) says that, in theHuachucas, it is quite abundant in all parts of the mountains duringthe spring migration, but not so numerous during the summer. In hispaper on Arizona mountain birds. Dr. Edgar A. Mearns (1890) writes : By its loud song this species is known to be a common denizen of the pineforests of this region ; but it keeps so near the pine-tops as to be seldom seen,save by tracing to their source the sweet notes one almost constantly hearswhen riding through these grand forests it being one of the most persistent singersthat I have met with. It often visits the spruce woods of the higher zone, a fewperhaps breeding there.In New Mexico, Mrs. Bailey (1928) records it as breeding as lowas 6,000 feet in the Guadalupe Mountains, and as high as 8,000 feet "in the coldest part of the Zuni Mountains."Russell K. Grater writes to me from Zion National Park, Utah: "This is one of the commonest birds in the park during the summermonths. Its habitat in the canyons is mainly confined to the boxelderand other broadleaf trees; here among these trees nesting birds areclosely distributed for miles along the canyon floor."Nesting.?On May 26, 1922, in a branch of Ramsay Canyon, in theHuachucas, we found a nest of the plumbeous vireo with the birdsitting on it ; it was about 6 feet from the ground at the tip of a lowerbranch of a small oak growing on the steep mountainside that rosesharply from the bed of the canyon. I tried to photograph it, but thebird would not let me get near enough for a good picture. I wassurprised to find the nest empty. The bird would not return to thenest in front of the camera; but after the camera was removed, shepromptly returned and settled on the nest as if incubating. My com-panion, Frank C. Willard, collected this nest, with a set of four nearlyfresh eggs, on Jiin.e 4 and sent it to me. This nest, now before mein its faded condition, must have been a very pretty nest when fresh.The framework, presumably of the usual materials used by vireos,is entirely concealed externally by a great variety of mosses, lichens,and bits of plant down of varied colors, firmly interwoven with andsecured in place by narrow strands of fine inner bark, probably cedar,other very fine fibers, numerous bits of fine string and apparently onlya little spider silk; these materials completely envelope and concealthe two supporting twigs. It is neatly lined with very fine, yellowishgrass tops, from which the seeds had been removed. Its externaldimensions are 4 by 31^ in diameter and over 2 inches in depth (it wasprobably flattened some in packing) ; the inner cavity measures about2y2 in diameter at the top and V^ inches in depth; the walls arenearly an inch thick in some places. PLUMBEOUS VIREO 311There is another set of four eggs in my collection, taken by O. W.Howard in these same mountains on May 31, 1901; the nest was in amai^le tree, hung from the fork of a small branch near the extremityof a limb, about 40 feet above ground.Mr. Willard (1908) says of nests that he has seen in the HuachucaMountains : The nests are usually close to the ground, frequently within reaching distance.Oaks, ash, maples and sycamores are selected as nesting sites. Each pair liasits claim staked out and ejects all intruders of the same species, altho the othertwo species are unmolested by Plumbeus even when nesting in close proximity.In nest building they go as far as a quarter of a mile for material. They feedcloser to the nest, however, probably at not over half this distance. The femaledoes all the nest-building but is assisted somewhat by the male in the duties ofincubation. He also feeds his mate on the nest, but this is done rather infre-quently. My present observations give the time at intervals of from twentyminutes to half an hour. When doing so he sings close by the nest afterfeeding her and this has helped me locate several. The male also sings whenthe nest is approached, aud once this year I saw one sitting on the nest andsinging. Toward evening the male frequently flies down close to the nest andsits within a few inches of it for long periods, being perfectly quiet and motion-less all the time.The nest is a very pretty cup-shaped affair as is usual with this family. It iscomposed of grass-tops woven into a framework aud filled in with oak down andgreenish colored oak blossoms and bits of spiders web. The lining is of finegrass tops from which all the seeds have been removed. The general appearanceof a normal nest is greenish in color. One nest built in a sycamore was madeentirely of white goat hair and fine grass. The hair hung down some inchesin a fringe all over and made a handsome ornament.In Zion National Park, Utah, according to Russell K. Grater (MS.), "nesting begins late in April and continues into June. The nests areuniformly close to the ground, usually being onlj'^ about 4 to 6 feet up.Made up of fine grasses, bits of small shredded leaves, and the cottonfrom the poplar trees, it is one of the most perfectly constructed nestsfound in the region. The nest is invariably on the tip of a long branch,suspended from a fork, and is usually well shaded by other parts ofthe tree's foliage. The parent birds call incessantly, even while bring-ing food to the young, becoming silent only when within a few feetof the nest."Eggs.?The plumbeous vireo lays ordinarily three or four eggs,most commonly four, and rarely five. These are similar to the eggsof the species elsewhere. The measurements of 30 eggs in the UnitedStates National Museum average 20.2 by 14.9 millimeters; the eggsshowing the four extremes measures 21.7 by 15.0, 21.4 by 15.5, and18.3 by 14.2 millimeters.In other respects all the habits of the plumbeous vireo seem to bevery similar to those of the eastern blue-headed vireo and need not bereported here. 312 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMVIREa SOLITARIUS CASSINl XantusCASSIN'S VIREOHABITSCassin's vireo is the westernmost race of the species, breeding fromthe Rocky Mountains westward and mainly in the Transition Zone,from central British Columbia to northern Lower California. Itdiffers from the eastern blue-headed vireo in being slightly smallerand much duller in color.In the northern portion of its range, Cassin's vireo seems to preferthe forests of pines and firs, where there is a mixture of oaks or otherdeciduous trees among the conifers. S. F. Rathbun tells me that it isa regular and not uncommon summer resident about Seattle, Wash.,where it prefers the rather open sections of the forest where there isa somewhat scattered growth of trees ; he also finds it where there isa mixture of deciduous trees among small firs, but considers it ratherpartial to oaks.Gabrielson and Jewett (1940) say that, in Oregon, "it is found inthe smaller second growth and in brushy areas either on the hillsidesor along the stream bottoms. * * * It breeds commonly andbuilds its dainty nest low in bushes or trees." Dr. J. C. Merrill (1888)writes: "Unlike most Vireos this one, as observed at Fort Klamath,shows a marked predilection for pines and firs, and is found almosteverywhere among these trees. It is also found, but much less fre-quently, in aspen groves with the Warbling Vireo. The nests arebuilt in low manzanita or buck-rush bushes that grow throughout thepine woods." Grinnell and Storer (1924) write:The Cassin Vireo is a summer visitant at middle altitudes along the westflank of the Sierra Nevada. Its distribution at nesting time closely parallelsthe ranges of the golden oak and incense cedar, though the bird does not restrictitself exclusively to these two trees. In and around Yosemite Valley this speciesand the Western Warbling Vireo are often to be found together, although theCassin shows preference for the drier portions of the Valley, for example, nearand upon the talus slopes along the north and south walls. During the springmigration the Cassin Vireo is a common transient in the western foothill countrywhere, during its passage, it is to be seen in blue oaks and chaparral on dryhillsides. In early fall after the young are grown a few of these vireos wanderup into the Hudsonian Zone before taking final leave of the country for thewinter.Howard L. Cogswell writes to me : "In the San Gabriel Mountains,the area where I have seen most of my Cassin's vireos, they are defi-nitely associated in the breeding season with the oaks along the wallsof the lower mountain canyons and throughout the big-cone sprucesand golden-cup oaks and into the lower edges of the pines of theTransition Zone. They are not often found in the alders and syca- CASSIN'S VIREO 313mores along the bottom of the larger canyons, and in the valley areasoccur only in migration."Nesting.?Thomas D. Burleigh (1930) reports five nests fomid nearTacoma, Wash. The first "was twelve feet from the ground at theouter end of a limb of a small scrub oak in a stretch of open firwoods, and was built of grasses and usnea moss, lined with fine grassesand bright red moss rootlets, and well ornamented on the outside withwhite spiders' egg cases and bits of dead leaves. * * * Withinthe next month four other nests were found, and two of them werein small oaks and two in alder saplings, varying in height from five toten feet from the ground."Mr. Rathbun has sent me the foUov/ing description of two nestsof the Cassin's vireo, found in that same region : "The nest is a cup-shaped affair and is attached by its upper edges to the horizontalfork of a limb, geiierally at no great height. It is neatly made, reflect-ing skill in its construction. The material used for the outer part ofone consisted of pieces of dead leaves of various dull colors, somebits of heavy gray paper, dry gray grasses and a small quantity ofgreenish-gray moss, these materials being interwoven and bound firmlyby tough plant fibers. The lining was entirely of fine, dry grasses.The general color effect of this nest was a composite one, formed ofmany rieutral tints, harmonizing with tlie lichen-covered limbs of asmall oak, in which it was built. The outside of the nest was deco-rated with pieces of white cocoon."Of the other, he says : "This nest was attached, pendantly, to a V-shapecl fork near the extremity of a low-er limb of a young fir, at aheight of about 15 feet, the top of the nest being screened from viewby a small twig overarching it. The material used consisted of manysmall pieces of thin, soft, dead leaves, long dry grasses, with a fewhorsehairs interwoven to help bind them and give strength; the nestwas firmly bound to its support by strips of dry moss and vegetablefibers. The lining was of fine fibers, small stems of leaves, and a fewhorsehairs ; the outside of the nest was decorated with a few pieces ofwhite cocoons. On the twigs to which it was attached grew a fewlichens, and a few of these w^ere scattered about the upper part of thenest. Diameter outside, 3i/t inches; height, 2i/4 inches; diameter in-side, 214 inches ; depth, 1% inches."Dawson and Bowles (1909) say that some nests are placed as muchas 30 feet above the ground, and Mr. Bowles adds: "They are thequickest as well as the slowest birds in completing their nests that havecome under my notice. One pair built a handsome nest and laid foureggs in precisely ten days; while another pair were more than threeweeks from the time the nest was started until the eggs were laid. Theyare the only Vireos that I have ever known to nest in communities.843290?50 21 314 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL ]VrUSEUMSingle pairs are the rule, but I have found as many as six occupiednests inside of a very small area, the nests being only a few yardsapart."J. Stuart Rowley writes to me: "There is an apple orchard inTulare County, Calif., at an elevation of about 4,600 feet, where Ihave had an ideal chance to observe the nesting habits of this vireo.Here it seems that apple trees are favorite nesting trees, and manypairs breed here every year. The first week in June is the height ofthe egg-laying time, and many nests containing eggs can be found.Often a nest of cassini will be found in one tree, Avhile in the very nexttree not 20 feet away will be a nest of the western warbling vireo."In the Yosemite Valley, Grinnell and Storer (1924) found a neston May 22, 1919. "It was placed in an incense cedar at the edge ofMerced River. The nest was on a branch which extended out overthe rushing stream and was about 18 feet above the surface of thewater." Dr. Grinnell (1908) found another nest "twelve feet fromthe ground in the lower outer foliage of an incense cedar groovingamong fire," in the San Bernardino Mountains.Eggs.?Cassin's vireo lays three to five eggs ; four is the usual num-ber, but sets of five are not very rare. They are like the eggs of theeastern races, white or creamy white, and sparingly spotted with dif-ferent shades of light or dark or reddish brown, the spots apparentlyaveraging lighter and brighter browns than with the eastern blue-headed vireo. The measurements of 40 eggs in the United StatesNational Museum average 19.4 by 14.3 millimeters; the eggs show-ing the four extremes measure 22.4 by 14.7, 21.3 by 15.2, 17.3 by 14.2,and 18.0 by 13.2 millimeters.Food.?A separate study of the food of Cassin's vireo was made byProf. F. E. L. Beal (1907), who examined the contents of 46 stomachs,taken in every month from April to November. He says : The vegetable food, which was only a little more than 2 percent of the total,was made up of leaf galls, seeds of poison oak, and a few bits of rubbish. Nota trace of fruit was found.The animal matter amounts to nearly 98 percent of the whole. Hemipteraare the largest item and amount to nearly 51 percent. The various familiesrepresented are those of the squash-bugs, leaf-bugs, stink-bugs, shield-bugs,leaf-hoppers, tree-hoppers, the jumping plant-lice, and scales. The latter arerepresented as usual by the black olive scale, which was contained in fourstomachs. Caterpillars, with a few moths, are next in importance and formmore than 23 percent of the whole food. They were eaten in every month andare evidently a favorite diet.[Hymenoptera] amount to over 7 percent, and are mostly wasps, with a fewants. * * * Ladybird beetles were eaten to the extent of a little less than6 percent, which is quite reasonable as compared with the record of the warblingvireo. * * * Other beetles amount to a little more than 3 percent of thefood, and are mostly weevils and small-leaf-beetles (Chryson:elidae). A fewflies, grasshoppers, and other insects amount to somewhat more than 2 percent,and these, with 4 percent of spiders, make up the remainder of the animal food. SAN LUCAS VIREO 315Fall.?Altlioiigli most individuals of the species breed in the Pa-cific States, mainly west of the Rocky Mountains, Cassin's vireos mi-grate southeastward in the fall, through Utah, Colorado, Arizona,and New Mexico, to their winter resorts in Mexico.VIREO SOLITARIUS LUCASANUS BrewsterSAN LUCAS VIREOHABITSWilliam Brewster (1891) , in describing and naming this vireo, says : This Viieo although averaging oonsiderahly smaller thau V. s. cassinii has abill as large and stout as in V. s. alticola. In the coloring of the upper parts allmy spring and summer specimens agree closely with cassinii but there is a de-cided and very constant difference in the color of the flanks and sides, thesehaving quite as much yellow as, but much less greenish than, V. solitarius. Inautumnal plumage the Lower California bird approaches autumnal specimensof solitarius very closely, having the upper parts quite as bright olive gi-een, thewing-bands as yellow, and the head nearly as clear ashy. There is also fully asmuch yellow on the sides, but nmcli less greenish. These characteristics, withthe almost total lack of brownish beneath, distinguish it readily from youngcassinii.Mr. Brewster (1902) says of its range: "So far as known, thisVireo is strictly confined to the Cape Region, where it is found at allseasons of the year, although most numerously, perhaps, in summer.Its breeding range extends from the coast at San Jose del Cabo, whereit occurs almost exclusively in cultivated grounds about houses, toMiraflores and San Jose del Rancho, at both of which places it iscommon. Only a few were seen by Mr. Frazar at Triunfo, and noneon the Sierra de la Laguna, while but one was taken (on April 4) atLa Paz, which appears to be beyond the northern limits of its usualrange."It is of interest to note that this race seems to be entirely isolated,as no form of the blue-headed vireo species is known to breed in the widegap between La Paz on the south and the Sierra San Pedro JMartiron the north.Nesting.?Mr. Brewster (1902) writes: "A nest of Y. s. lucasanuscontaining four fresh eggs, found by Mr. Frazar at San Jose delRancho on July 15, was suspended in a fork at the extremity of a long,leafless branch of an oak at a height of about fifteen feet. It is com-posed chiefly of a gray, hemp-like fiber mixed with grass stems and thinstrips of bark. There are also a few spiders' cocoons loosely attachedto the bottom and sides, and apparently intended as ornaments. Theinterior is very neatly lined with fine, wiry, reddish-brown grass cir-cularly arranged. The nest measures externally 3.00 in diameter by2.50 in depth ; internally, 2.00 in diameter by 1.50 in depth. The wallsare half an inch thick in places." 316 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMJ. Stuart Rowley writes to me : "^Vhile walking through the woodson San Bernardo Mountain, on the Gulf slope of the Sierra de la La-guna, I heard the unmistakable song of a solitary vireo, and, by care-fully tracing the song to its source, I finally discovered the bird sittingon the nest." Charles E. Doe, who now has this nest in the Univer-sity of Florida, tells me that it is a beautiful nest, made of fibers andmoss, and placed 12 feet from the ground in a small oak ; it was takenon May 6, 1933.Eggs.?Both of the sets mentioned above, the only sets of which Ihave any record, contained four eggs each. Mr. Brewster's eggs arewhite, "with a slight creamy tint, and are spotted, chiefly about thelarger ends, with reddish brown and black." The measurements of theeight eggs average 20.5 by 14.3 millimeters; the eggs showing the fourextremes measure 21.1 by 13.8, 20.5 by 15.3, 19.9 by 14.3, and 20.2 by13.8 millimeters. VIREO CALIDRIS BARBATULUS (Cabanis)BLACK-WHISKERED VIREOHABITSOur black-whiskered vireo is an offshoot from a "West Indian species,Vireo calidris, of which there are at least three other subspecies foundin the Lesser Antilles and on islands in the Caribbean Sea. Our birddiffers from the type race, Vireo calidris calidris, "in much paler andless buffy superciliary stripe and auricular region, grayer pileum,duller olive-green of back, etc., and purer white throat and chest,"according to Ridgway (1904) . It is apparently only a summer resident west of Dominica, where itbreeds in Haiti, Cuba, Little Cayman, Isle of Pines, Key West, theDry Tortugas, the Bahama Islands, and on the west coast of Florida,as far north as Anclote Keys.Arthur H. Howell (1932) records it, also, on Plantation Key, KeyLargo, and other Florida keys, as well as at Miami and at Coral Gables.Although I have visited most of these Florida localities several times,I never saw this bird, as I generally left for the north before its ar-rival. Oscar Baynard told me that it is a common summer residentin Pinellas County, nesting in the red mangroves around the shoresof the bays and bayous late in May and in June, and such seem to beits favorite haunts all along the west coast of Florida, though Howell(1932) collected one "from the top of a large oak in a creek bottomat Seven Oaks, a mile or more from Old Tampa Bay."On the Isle of Pines, according to W. E. Clyde Todd (1916) , "it is acommon inhabitant of the low thickets and jungles. * * * j^was particularly numerous on the slopes and at the foot of the Casasand Caballos Mountains." BLACK-WHISKERED VIREO 317Referring to the Bnliajiias, C. J. Maynard (189G) writes: "It wasnot, however, until our return to New Providence on May IStli, 1884,that we saw our first specimen of the Bhick-whiskered Vireo. Theirloud, peculiar songs could be heard in all directions, not only in thescrub, but also in the gardens and in the trees along the streets of thecity of Nassau. Indeed, the first specimen that I saw was perchedon a high limb of one of the fine almond trees which grew amongmany others on a snicill public park, known as the Parade, situatedto the eastward of the city."Dr. Glover M. Allen's (1905) experience with it in the Bahamaswas somewhat similar; he says: "This vireo is a bird of the moreopen tree growth, particularly in the neighborhood of cultivatedlands. We met with it not infrequently on New Providence andAbaco, but saw none on Great Bahama, from which island it has notyet been reported. Its absence there is doubtless due to a lack of suit-able tree growth, at least in the portions hitherto visited. The exten-sive pine forests seem to be wholly avoided by it. * * * "\Ye alsofound this species on several of the larger cays where there were tallbushes, as at Stranger Cay."Nesting.?Mr. Baynard (1914) shows a photograph (pi. 42) of anest and three eggs of the black-whiskered vireo which he foundwhile paddling along the mangroves on the coast of Pinellas County,Fla., of which he says : "It was not over two feet from my face, yetshe stayed on her nest until I put forth my hand to touch her. Thenest was empty, but evidently completed. * * * i visited thisnest every day, but the bird laid an egg only every other day untilshe had three, then waited two whole days before beginning incuba-tion. The nest was pensile, like all Vireos' nests, but not nearly sodeep as most, and made entirely of seaweed, with a few pieces of pal-metto fiber and one small feather woven in the side; it was linednicely with fine, dry grass, and one or two pine-needles."The construction of the nest described above must have been ratherunusual, quite different at least from that of nests of the species else-where. For example, Cassin (1854) quotes P. H. Gosse's descriptionof Jamaica nests, as follows : The nest is rather a neat structure, though made of coarse materials. It is adeep cup, about as large as an ordinary tea-cup, narrowed at the mouth, com-posed of dried grass, intermixed with silk-eottou, and sparingly with lichen andspiders' nests, and lined with thatch-threads. It is usually suspended betweentwo twigs, or in the fork of one, the margin being over-woven so as to embrace thetwigs. This is very neatly performed. Specimens vary mucli in beauty,?onebefore me is particularly neat and compact, being almost globular in form,except that about one-fourth of the globe is wanting, as it is a cup. Thoughthe walls are not thick, they are very firm and close, the materials being well 318 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM woven. These are fibres of grass-like iilants, moss, a few dry leaves, flat paperyspiders' nests, with a little cotton or down for the over-binding of the edges. Itis lined smoothly with fibres, I know not of what plant, as slender as humanhair. Another nest, similarly formed, has the cavity almost filled with a massof white cotton, which looks as if thrust in by man, but that those filaments of themass are in contact with the sides, are interwoven with the other materials. Asit is picked cotton, it must be a bit stolen from some house or yard, not plucked bythe bird from the capsule.A nest, reported by Mr. Todd (1916) , was found during the secondweek in June, on the Isle of Pines, was "placed about fifteen feet fromthe ground, on a horizontal branch of a hardwood tree." Anothernest was found there on April 21, 1909. A set of three eggs in mycollection was taken by C. J. Maynard at Nassau, in the Bahamas,on June 24, 1897 ; the nest was placed in a low tree, about 10 feet up, andwas composed of grass, leaves, and fragments of palm fronds, linedwith rootlets.Dean Amadon has sent me the following data on a set of eggs takenby Joseph C. Howell, at Boca Ciega Ba}'', Pinellas County, Fla., onJune 19, 1932 : "Eggs two days from hatching. Nest 9 feet up in a redmangrove, suspended from a horizontal limb. The nest tree stood onthe edge of a dense clump of red mangroves, which bordered thebayou for miles in both directions ; the nest hung out over the water.The bird did not flush uritil I nearly touched it. Then it returned towithin a foot of me, giving a sort of squeal resembling a catbird's 'meow.' The other bird also approached to within 6 feet, but did notscold. Later, both became silent and I lost complete track of them.Outside of nest built almost entirely of materials that were grayishwhite in color, grass blades, plant down, and dead leaves. There wereone or two blackish gray grass blades and a spot of yellow plant down.Not very smoothly lined with fine grass stems. Nest not too firmlyaffixed to limb by plant down and grass stems."Eggs.?The black-whiskered vireo usually lays a set of three eggs,but sometimes only two. These are usually somewhat elongated toelliptical-ovate to elliptical-oval. The color is a delicate, pure white,with a pinkish appearance when fresh. They are rather sparinglymarked with a few small spots, or minute dots, widely scattered overthe Qgg^ of various shades of brown, purplish brown or reddish brown ; sometimes the spots are in shades of faint purple or violet-gray, or invery dark brown or blackish. Not all these colors appear in every egg.The measurements of 43 eggs average 21.0 by 15.1 millimeters; theeggs showing the four extremes measure 23.5 by 16.3, 22.8 by 16.5,18.8 by 14.2, and 19.7 by 13.5 millimeters.Plumages.?I have seen no small young of this species, but Kidgrs'ay(1904) describes the juvenal plumage [of Jamaican vireo], as follows: "Pileum, hindneck, back, scapulars, rump, upper tail-coverts, andlesser wing-coverts plain broccoli brown, inclining to fawn color; BLACK-WHISKERED VIREO 319wings (except lesser coverts) and tail as in adults, but greater wing-coverts indistinctly tipped, as well as edged, with pale yellow ; super-ciliary stripe and sides of head bnffy whitish, partly separated by adusky loral and postocnlar mark; malar region, chin, and throat palerbuffy white or vinaceons white; rest of under parts white, the sides,flanks, and under tail-coverts tinged with sulphur yellow."The small amount of pertinent material available indicates thatsubsequent molts and plumages parallel those of the closely relatedred-eyed vireo, with a partial postjuvenal molt, involving the contourplumage and the lesser wing coverts in young birds, and a completepostnuptial molt in adults.Food.?Dr. Edward A. Chapin's (1925) report on the food of theblack-whiskered vireo was based on the examination of only fourstomachs, collected in Florida in May and June. He writes : Of the entire food, 87.5 percent was of animal origin. By far tlie largest singleitem was spiders, 39.25 percent of the whole ; in one stomach were the remainsof 10 individuals of one kind ( Tctrcumdtha ) . Caterpillars and eggs of some mothor butterfly made up 14.25 percent of the food. In one stomach were 10 smallearwigs (Forficulidae), which represented about 10 percent of the animal food.Miscellaneous beetles, including weevils from one stomach, made up 18.25 percent,and the remaining 5.75 percent was composed of wasps or bees and assassin bugs(Reduviidae).The vegetable food, 12.5 percent of the total, was composed of fruit of barberry(Berhcris) and of ragweed (Ambrosia) , found in three of the four stomachs.The number of stomachs examined was far too small to give anadequate picture of the food of this bird, especially as they were col-lected between May 21 and June 7. The examination of 84 stomachsof the typical race, taken in Puerto Rico, "show that the bird is de-cidedly frugivorous, inasmuch as wild fruits or berries were detectedin 80 of the 84 stomachs examined and amounted to 57.82 percent."Probably birds collected in Florida or Cuba later in the season wouldshow a larger percentage of vegetable food.Harold H. Bailey (1925) says that in Florida "they feed in thehammocks from the lovv-er bushes to the highest branches, on smallspiders, caterpillars, flies, mosquitoes, and most of the small varietiesof insects."Behavior.?Mr. Maynard (1896) writes:In habit this species is quite peculiar in some ways. They keep well in the topsof the trees, seldom, if ever, feeding in the low scrub. They are exceedinglyagile in movement, having a peculiar briskness of action which is quite unvireo-like. They are, almost without exception, shy, and when they perceive an in-truder, which they are apt to do very quickly, as they are ever on the alert, theyerect the feathers of the head, droop the wings, spread the tail and utter a seriesof scolding notes quite unlike those of any other Vireo I ever heard. Then afterflying restlessly from bough to bough for a moment or two, they utter a shrillscream of anger and off they go, generally flying several hundred yards in astraight line before alighting again. Even while feeding by themselves, they 320 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM are exceedingly restless birds and a pair will not remain long in one tree.Quickly searching it over, they will leave it, almost invariably taking a longflight before selecting another feeding ground.This extreme shyness and restlessness described by Mr. Maynard,as observed in the Bahamas, does not seem to be characteristic of thespecies elsewhere. Dr. Alexander Wetmore (191C) thus refers to thespecies in Puerto Rico: "Slow and leisurely in habit, they workthrough the leaves and twigs, sometimes singing for several minutesfrom one perch and exhibiting no fear." They are said to allow aclose approach while incubating, as mentioned by Mr. Baynard above.Dr. Chapman (1892) says of the bird in Cuba : "It is a very tame andunsuspecting bird, and resembles our Red-eyed Vireo both in songand habits. The song, however, is more emphatic and hesitating thanthat of V. [ireol oUvaceusyVoice.?Opinions seem to differ, also, on the song of the black-whiskered vireo. Dr. Wetmore (1916) says that the song of thePuerto Rican bird "is a series of couplets, closely resembling that ofthe red-eyed species, and they have the usual scolding note of thevireos." And Dr. G. M. Allen (1905) says of the Bahaman bird:"The song is somewhat similar to that of the Red-eyed Vireo, but lessvaried, almost a monotone, delivered in a quiet apathetic way fromsome hidden perch."How different is the following account given by Mr. Maynard(1896) for the bird he heard at Nassau ! The song of the Black-whiskered Vireo is loud and clear, noticeable in thischaracter among all other of the smaller species of Bahaman Birds. "Whip TomKelly," is the nearest rendering of the lay that I can give, with an occasionalfourth syllable added, sounding like "phue." These notes are repeated quiterapidly, with a decided accent on the "kelly." The fourth syllable when given israther less energetically rendered, being a little plaintive. But the whole song isuttered with such carelessness, not only as to intonation, but also in detail, thatit is seldom that the rendering which I have given can be distinctly heard.Either the syllables are run together, as is often the case, or the first one or twoare given so low, or omitted altogether, that it is not uncommon to hear the birduttering the "kelly" only, at rather wide intervals in a preoccupied and carelesstone as if too busy about other matters to stop and sing. When heard in thedistance on a still morning the notes remind one of the far away song of theWhippoorwill. When heard close at hand the song somewhat recalls the lay ofsome of the Orioles and the resemblance is partly carried out by the movementsof the bird, but unlike the Orioles these Vireos never sing as they fly. Althoughthey sing all day long, unlike the Thick-billed Vireo, they do not begin until sun-rise and end at sunset.It is interesting to note, in Cassin's (1854) account of this species,that the whip-tom-heUy note is so characteristic of the bird in Jamaicathat it has become a popular name for this vireo. And he quotesGosse's rendering of its strongly accented notes as ^'Sweet-John!?John-to-whit!? Sweet-John-to-iohH!? John-t'-whit!? Sweet-John- YELLOW-GREEN VIREO 321to-whitr Apparently the song of this species varies considerably indifferent localities or in different individual birds.Field marks.?The only field mark that will distinguish the black-whiskered vireo from the red-eyed vireo is the rather inconspicuousblack malar stripe, which can be seen only at short range. Its song,however, is usually recognizable.DISTRIBUTIONRange.?Southwestern Florida and the Bahamas to northern SouthAmerica.Breeding range.?The black-whiskered vireo breeds in the Bahamas,being found on all the islands that furnish suitable habitat, in Cubaincluding the Isle of Pines, on the Florida keys as far west as KeyWest, and on the islands and mainland of the west coast north toAnclote Key. It has also been found breeding at the south end ofLake Okeechobee.y^inter range.?The winter home is not fully known, but at that timethe species is probably found only in South America, where its occur-rence has been recorded in the Santa Marta region of Colombia, inBritish Guiana (possibly migrating) , and in the lower Amazon Valleynear the mouth of the Rio Tapajoz.Migration.?iV few migration dates are available.Late date of spring departure from Colombia?Mamatoco, April15.Early dates of spring arrival : Cuba?Habana, March 9. Bahamas ? New Providence, March 15. Florida?Fort Myers, April 17.Late dates of fall departure: Florida?Palma Sola, September 9.Bahamas?Nassau, December 8. Cuba?Camagiiey, October 1.Dates of fall arrival are: Panama?Obaldia, Seytember 12. Co-lombia?Bonda, September 16. British Guiana?Bartica Grove,October 8.Egg dates.?Bahama Islands : 4 records, June 17 to July 3.Florida : 5 records. May 25 to June 28.Isle of Pines : 1 record, April 24.VIREO FLAVOVIRIDIS FLAVOVIRmiS (Cassin)YELLOW-GREEN VIREOHABITSContributed by Alexander Frank SkutchThe long list of migrant birds occurring in Central America is com-posed almost wholly of winter residents?species that breed farthernorth and pass the cold months there. With very few exceptions, 322 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMthe birds that nest in this great isthmus are permanent residents.Few kinds indeed can be confidently classified as summer residents,breeding in Central America and passing the nonbreeding season far-ther south. But in the five republics north of Panama (Central Amer-ica in the political rather than the geographical sense) , four speciesappear to belong in this category. Of these, the yellow-green vireo'sclaim to this status rests upon the largest mass of evidence. Theother three are flycatchers: the sulphur-bellied flycatcher {Myiody-nastes luteiventris) , the noble flycatcher {Mylodynastes inaculatusnoMlis), and the striped flycatcher {Legatus alUcollis). It is note-worthy that two of these four birds extend their migrations far northof Central America. Possibly, were bird watchers not so exceedinglyfew in this area of marvelously varied bird life, other breedhig specieswould be discovered to have similar migratory habits; possibly, too,more widespread observations would show that some of the four listeddo not withdraw as completely as we now believe. Where there areso few students to lend confirmatory evidence, one must make generalstatements with extreme caution.In Central America the yellow-green vireo is a bird of the Pacificlowlands and lower elevations of the interior. In both Costa Eica andGuatemala it is, during the nesting season, widespread and familiaron the Pacific slope and in the central highlands, up to about 5,000feet above sea level. Thence it extends down the Caribbean slopethrough the cleared agricultural lands, but on this side of the isthmusis very rare below the 1,500-foot contour. During my first three yearsin Central America, spent largely in the Caribbean lowlands of Pan-ama, Honduras, and Guatemala, I did not form the acquaintanceof this vireo ; but when I began to study the birds of the central high-lands and the Pacific slope, I soon became familiar with it. Thisdistribution suggests that, in Costa Eica at least, it was originallya species of the lighter, more open forests of the northern Pacific low-lands, and began to cross the lower passes in the central Cordillera,and invade the Atlantic slope, as heavy primeval forests were replacedby pastures and cultivated fields with scattered trees.In its mode of life, as in appearance and voice, the yellow-greenvireo is the Central American counterpart of its close relation, thered-eyed vireo of North America. It has the same bright red eye,the same deliberate, untiring song, the same habit of hunting rest-lessly amid the foliage where it is difficult to see, builds its nest accord-ing to the same pattern. It avoids the heavy rain forests, rarely ifever venturing into their sunless depths, and is at home in light second-growth woodland, in orchards, hedgerows, and roadside trees. Shadypastures are a favorite haunt of the bird ; and the coffee plantations,with their glossy-leafed bushes standing in orderly ranks beneath theevenly spaced shade trees, offer conditions greatly to its liking. But YELLOW-GREEN VIREO 323despite the abundance of the yellow-green vireo in the dooryards andplantations of men, and the untiring persistency with which it pro-claims its presence during nearly half the year, I have never been ableto discover a native name for it, either in Costa Rica or Guatemala.But this lack of a name is hardly surprising in a land where thepeople as a whole are so indifferent to bird life that kinds so large,abundant, and strikingly beautiful as the trogons are (with theexception of the quetzal) nameless to them.Spring.?As one would expect with a bird that comes up from thesouth, the yellow-green vireo appears latest in the more northernparts of its breeding range. In southwestern Tamaulipas, Mexico,Sutton and Pettingill (1942) did not encounter it before April 9.During mid-April it became steadily commoner, until, by the 20th,it was abundant. It began to sing as soon as it arrived. In Guate-mala, according to Griscom (1932) , it arrives "the first week in April,earliest record late March (Dearborn), but is not generally commonor singing until April 15." In central Costa Rica (San Jose) it arrives,according to Cherrie (1890), in the middle of April. But here in theTerraba Valley of southern Costa Rica, nearer its winter home inSouth America, it commonly appears early in February. In 1936 1 firstrecorded it at Rivas (3,000 feet) on February 6; the following year,on the 4th ; in 1939, on the 8th. In 1942 I first saw the bird at GeneralViejo on February 15 but heard its voice several days earlier. Nosooner have the males arrived than they begin to advertise their re-turn by their song. Since they remain well concealed in the crowns ofthe full-foliage trees, one is usually first apprised of their home-coming by their voices. Rapidly increasing both in numbers andtunefulness, they are soon singing everywhere along the shady roadsthrough the cultivated districts, the pastures with scattered trees, andthe rivers overhung by the epiphyte-laden boughs of the spreadingsotacaballo. Their song so greatly resembles that of the red-eyedvireo that, to one newly arrived from the north, their voices lend ahomelike touch to an otherwise strange environment.Nesting.?Just how the yellow-green vireo wins his mate has so farescaped me. At this season, when a score of birds in the surroundingforests are preparing nests never seen by ornithologists, so familiara bird is apt to receive far less attention than it deserves. Before oneis aware of it, he has paired and his mate is beginning to build. Myearliest date for the beginning of nest construction is March 18, 1937,a year when rains were frequent the first three months, which hereare normally dry. The first egg was laid in this nest on March 27;but my next early record for eggs is April 24 of the same year. Herein the basin of El General (the head of the Terraba Valley) , between2,000 and 3,000 feet above sea level, nests with eggs are not easily foundbefore May, which is the height of the breeding season for this bird, 324 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM as for the great majority of small passerine birds of the region. Sincein normal years the rains begin at the end of March or early in April,the vegetation is by now in its fullest verdure and insect life abundant.Like other members of her family, the yellow-green vireo choosesfor her nest site a V-shaped fork between slender, nearly horizontalbranchlets. The 17 nests whose approximate height I have recordedranged from 51/0 to 40 feet above ground. Of the two nests 40 feetup, one was in a shade tree of a coffee plantation near Colomba,Guatemala, and the other in a roadside tree near Alajuela, Costa Rica.Our local birds prefer low positions for their nests ; 9 of my 14 recordsfor El General are of nests less than 10 feet above ground; and thehighest was 25 feet up. Wlien nesting in bushy pastures, a favoritesite is a crotch of the tuete {Vernonia patens), a white-flowered com-posite bush of no great height. But even when they choose a tall tree,the vireos frequently attach their nest to the drooping extremity ofone of the lowest branches.It was in such a position, in a fork at the end of a low bough of anaguacatillo tree {Persea caerulea) standing in an open pasture, thatI watched a yellow-green vireo build her nest on two bright morningsof March 1937. Since the bird was shy, I sat well concealed in a blind.The nest had already been given its final shape, that of a cup attachedby its rim to the supporting branchlets ; but the fabric was still ex-ceedingly thin and delicate. The female alone worked. Although shewas exactly like her mate in plumage, her silence and his untiring songserved well to distinguish the twain. She brought strips of partiallydecayed grass blades, fibers of various sorts, and cobweb. Standingupon the supporting twig at one side of the nest, she would depositthe material in its bottom. Then, frequently, she would enter the deepcup, and press herself down into it, with bill pointed upward and wingsraised above her back, while she shaped it with her entire body. Asshe flew away again, she usually uttered her sharp little churred call.She did not work very hard; and her visits on the nest were widelyspaced. On the first morning, from 7 : 30 to 8 : 30, she brought mate-rial only 10 times; yet in this hour she labored more actively thanduring any other of the five that I kept watch. In the next hour shecame only eight times ; and on the second morning she worked evenmore slowly.Her mate remained much of the time among the foliage of theaguacatillo tree in which the nest was being built, singing mree in hisusual unhurried fashion. Early in the morning, before the femalehad begun to build, he twice went to the nest, perched a few momentsupon one of the supporting twigs at its side, and quivered his wingswhile he coiitinued to drop his bright notes at measured intervals.Often he followed the female when she flew off to seek more material,and accompanied her too, on her return to the nest. At other times, YELLOW-GREEN VIREO 325AYhen he lingered in the tree during her absence, he hurried down andalighted close beside her and soon as she returned to the nest. Healso undertook to guard it from intrusion, and drove a Lawrence'selaenia {E. chiriquensis) from its neighborhood, then later chasedaway a silver-throated tanager {Calospiza icteroce'phala) that hadventured too near. But afterward, while the vireos were absent, aMexican honeycreeper {Goercha mexicana), which was doubtlessbuilding a dormitory nest somewhere not far otF, stole a blade ofgrass from their nest and flew off unmolested with his small booty.The completed nest closely resembles that of the red-eyed vireo inform and materials. It is a thick-walled, compact structure, theouter layer composed of dry grass blades, strips of papery bark andof plant epidermis, or similar ribbonlike material, while the innerlining is of fine fibers. It is bound together and attached to the armsof the fork between which it hangs by cobweb used in liberal quantity,and frequently ornamented on the exterior with skeins of white spiderweb and empty silken egg cases.Eggs.?Four days may elapse between the completion of the nestand the appearance of the first egg. The others follow on consecutivedays. Three is the usual set ; but about one-fifth of the nests I havefound contained only two. In one case the nest was visited daily dur-ing the period of egg-laying, and only two eggs appeared, indicatingthat at times two constitute the set. The eggs are white, finely speckledwith some shade of brown (ranging from light brown to umber andchocolate) , the spots usually aggregated in a wreath or cap upon thelarge end, with perhaps a thin scattering over the remaining surface.The average measurements of eight eggs temporarily removed fromtheir nests in El General are 20.5 x 14.6 mm. ; those showing the fourextremes measure 22.2 by 15.1, 20.2 by 15.5, 19.4 by 15.1, 19.8 by 13.9millimeters.Incubation.?Incubation is performed by the female alone. Com-monly she sits facing the crotch in which her nest is hung?I cannotrecall having seen a bird face outward from the tree as she incubated.As a rule, she sits steadfastly, allowing a close approach before shequits her eggs. Then she may rise to a higher branch and peer downat the intruder, frequently scolding with her nasal chaaa^ while shespreads her tail and raises her crown-feathers in a questioning atti-tude. I have watched two nests for a number of hours continuouslyduring the course of incubation, and since the behavior of the vireosdiffered materially, it may be well to discuss them separately.One of these nests was situated about 25 feet up in a sotacaballotree {Pithecololium) growing along the Kio San Antonio, at the edgeof a pasture. On the morning of May 12, 1940, 1 watched for 3 hours,and found the sequence of the female vireo's sessions and recesses tobe as follows (the recesses in italics) : 39, 19, 40, 11, 9, 13, 16, and 21 326 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM minutes. Sometimes while sitting she uttered a sharp, rattling call ; and each time she winged away at the end of a session she deliveredthe same rattle. More rarely she voiced this call as she returned toresume incubation.Her mate was most attentive. Wliile the female sat, he sang hissimple notes incessantly among the surrounding branches. From timeto time he went to look into the nest. As his mate returned from arecess to resume incubation, he would hurry up to the nest and standbeside it for a moment. This action, repeated three times in as manyhours, seemed an act of courtesy or formality, comparable to the cus-tom of certain male flycatchers and tanagers of accompanying theirmates to the doorways of their closed nests as they return to theireggs. Once the male vireo went to the nest while his mate was nearbybut not ready to resume sitting. She hurried up to stand beside thenest, too, for a moment ; then both flew off again. These visits of themale to the nest kept him informed as to the state of affairs there.As we shall see, he was not tardy in bringing food after the eggshatched.The other nest was placed 11 feet above ground in a small Nectandratree in a weedy pasture beside the Buena Vista River. From conceal-ment I made notes on it continuously from dawn to nearly midday(5 : 15 to 11 : 33) on the drizzly morning of June 1, 1936. This femalevireo was neglected by her mate, who did not once come near the nestduring the entire morning. Her sessions on the eggs were of irregularlength, and varied from 15 to 61 minutes in no orderly fashion. Herrecesses were generally brief and ranged from 6 to 18 minutes; butonly twice were they in excess of 9 minutes. She spent a total of 256minutes on the nest and only 85 away from it. On returning to thenest, she never flew directly to it but always alighted on the otherside of the small tree and made her way to it from branch to branch.As she neared her nest she almost invariably announced her comingby the utterance of a rather sharp, nasal chaa. Usually she sat insilence ; but once, when a male (her mate ? ) began to sing in a neighbor-ing tree, she answered with a sharp, churred call. Upon leaving thenest she flew directly from its rim, almost always uttering this pe-culiar churred note early in her flight. Usually she flew to thesotacaballo trees along the bank of the river a hundred feet away;but when the male sang in the trees on the opposite side of the nest,she went there to join him.During her recesses the female vireo ate many berries, principallyof some parasitic loranthaceous bush; and the indigestible seeds ofthese she regurgitated at frequent intervals while sitting upon thenest. These came up surrounded by a colorless, extremely viscoussubstance, Avhich caused them to adhere to her bill so that she could YELLOW-GREEN VIREO 327 not drop them to the ground. Accordingly, to get rid of them, she wasobliged to wipe them onto the branch beside the nest. She always satin the same position, facing the crotch, and invariably attached theseeds to the branch on her left, with the result that a conspicuous massof them had accumulated here. As she placed another seed on themass and withdrew her head, a string of slime would frequently pullout between her bill and the seed, so viscous was the substance sur-rounding it. The newly attached seeds would sometimes slip downover the older ones, to remain adhering to the lower side of the lowest,thus forming short, beadlike chains. Wliile the vireo regurgitatesthese mistletoe seeds, they pass entirely through the alimentary tractof euphonias, and retaining their adhesive properties as well as theirviability, stick to the branches and germinate, to the great detrimentof the trees.The ever-growing mass of seeds seemed to annoy the vireo, andshe devoted considerable effort to keeping it small. Frequently, whilesitting, she plucked off the seeds in her bill, whence she was able todrop many of the older ones upon which the gum had dried ; but othersclung so stubbornly that she was constrained to attach them to themass again in order to free herself of the incumbrance. At times sheate seeds that she had previously attached to the mass ; at other timesshe swallowed again those which had just slipped up into her mouth.Upon leaving the nest for a recess, she almost always carried away aseed, either one newly regurgitated, or one plucked from the mass ather side. Not infrequently she made trips to the nest during her recessfor the purpose of carrying away these seeds. On these visits sheusually plucked a single seed from the cluster and flew off with it,but on one occasion she swallowed one seed and carried a second inher bill. During the course of a single recess, she made four visits tothe nest, and carried away five seeds.The viscous substance surrounding the mistletoe seeds appeared tobe somewhat attractive to insects ; and I saw the vireo Vvdiile incubatingeat two flylike creatures which had stuck to the cluster. Thus therewas a certain advantage to the bird in this mass of gummy seeds, forit brought food directly to her mouth as she warmed her eggs.Young.?The incubation period, as determined at two nests, is 14days. The pink-skinned nestlings have their eyes tightly closed. Atfirst glimpse they appear to be quite naked; but careful scrutiny in afavorable light reveals a few scattered tufts of very short, fine downon the top of the head, back, and wings. The interior of the mouth isyellow, as in the majority of insectivorous passerine birds.As a rule the nestlings are fed by both parents. If he has beenattentive during the course of incubation, the male may begin to bringfood quite promptly after the eggs have hatched. This was so of the 328 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM nest beside the Eio San Antonio I had watched during the period ofincubation on May 12. The record I made on the spot tells the storyquite succinctly : May 17, 1940, 7: 25 a. m. I arrive at the vireos' nest and find the femalesitting.7:32 She leaves the nest, carrying off the cap of a shell from whichthe nestling has emerged. (Whether the first, second, or thii'd,I cannot tell in this inaccessible nest.)7 : 49 The male goes to look into the nest.7 : 55 The female sits a fevs^ seconds, then leaves. Soon returns tobrood.8 : 07 She leaves as the male comes with food.8: 10 She feeds a nestling. The male comes with food which he givesto her as she stands above the nest. She passes this on to anestling, then flies off with the large half of a shell.8 : 15 She returns, feeds a nestling, broods.8 : 24 The male brings an insect to his mate. She rises up to feed anestling, then continues to brood.8 : 28 She leaves as the male comes with food.8 : 29 He brings food again.8 : 31 Tlie female delivers food, then departs.8 : 34 The male comes singing with food in his bill.8:36 The female brings food, then broods.8 : 39 The male brings food to the female on the nest.It was easy to distinguish the male by his tireless singing. Thefemale uttered only the sharp rattle already described. The visitsthe male had been in the habit of making to the nest during the courseof incubation kept him well informed of conditions there and ensuredhis prompt attendance upon the nestlings when they hatched. In thesame sotacaballo tree where the vireos nested hung a black, retort-shaped nest of a gray-headed flycatcher {Rhynchocydus cinereiceps).The male apparently never went to look into it while it containedeggs; and as a result of this negligence the nestlings were severaldays old before he discovered their presence and began to bring foodto them.The nestling vireos are nourished with both animal and vegetablefood. Among the former is a variety of winged insects, includingbig, green tree crickets?which are delivered to the youngsters wingsand all?and smooth caterpillars of various kinds. The vegetablefood consists of various kinds of berries, and the bright red, arillateseeds of Clusia, a genus of thick-leafed epiphytic shrubs and treeswith fragrant white or pink blossoms. These red seeds are also animportant element in the diet of nestling blue honeycreepers {Cyan-erpes cya/nea). During their first days, the mother vireo keeps thenaked nestlings covered most of the time.Though as a rule the male vireo helps feed his offspring, at thenest where he was so inattentive during the course of incubation (on TELLOW-GREEN VIREO 329June 1, 1936) lie also failed to bring food. Yet the mother bird wasquite capable of attending her nestlings unaided, even on the cool,darkly overcast morning of June 12, when light drizzles alternatedwith harder showers during most of my 3-hour watch. The two nest-lings, respectively 2 and 3 days old, were kept brooded about two-thirds of the time, from 4 to IT minutes at a stretch, and left exposedfor periods ranging from 2 to 8 minutes, while the mother soughtfood. She was a skillful hunter and frequently returned with some-thing substantial within 2 or 3 minutes after leaving the nest. Manyof the winged insects and caterpillars she brought were so big thatthe tiny nestlings experienced considerable difficulty in swallowingthem, and she was obliged to place them several times in the yellowmouths upstretched before her, until at length they disappeared. Shekept her babies well filled ; and when, at the end of my watch, they didnot readily accept a large insect she brought for them, she swallowedit herself.Four days later, when the eldest nestling was a week old, I watchedthis nest again, and again failed to see the male visit it, although Iheard a vireo which was probably the parent singing in the treesalong the river. The female still brooded most of the time?TO minutesout of 124?in periods ranging from 3 to 11 minutes.While these nestlings attended by a single parent came safelythrough the most critical period in their lives, those in the sotacaballotree beside the Rio San Antonio, whose father was so attentive, metsome premature end. Apparently they were attacked and killed byants, for on the morning of May 19, looking closely through thebinoculars, I could discern small ants filing in numbers along thebranch to which their nest was attached. Several times the femalevireo came and stood beside the nest to pluck from it, in quick succes-sion, a great many small objects invisible to me, doubtless ants. Thenshe would fly off again, uttering her sharp little rattle. Once thefather vireo came with an insect in liis bill, singing as was his custom,and stood for a few moments above the nest, continuing to sing. Atlength he carried the insect off and swallowed it and went on singingas before. But during the course of an hour the nestlings were neitherfed nor brooded, whence I inferred that they were dead. So muchattention given to a nest with dead nestlings implies lack of insighton the part of the parents; but "what should they know of death?"Despite the apparent security of the cobweb bindings that attachthe rim of the nest to the arms of the crotch in which it hangs, it notinfrequently becomes detached, on one or both sides, before the youngare feathered, or even before the eggs have hatched. On several oc-casions, I have saved the occupants from disaster by sewing or tyingup the nest. Though hummingbirds reinforce the bindings of their843290?50 22 330 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM nests by continuing to bring fresh cobweb throughout the course ofincubation, vireos apparently never tal^e this precaution.The nestlings are clothed with feathers by their tenth day. At theage of from 12 to 14 days, when they can still scarcely fly, they forsaketheir swinging cradle. They then rather closely resemble their parentsin plumage, the chief difference being the absence, in the fledglings,of the darker margins of the gray crown. Their eyes are brown insteadof red.Food.?In the absence of careful analyses, such as have been madefor North American birds, it is only possible to state in general tennsthe food of the yellow-green vireo. Probably the bulk is made up ofinsects, spiders, and larvae, which they hunt among the foliage andon the more slender branches, where they are constantly flittingabout, pausing now and again to peer to this side and that. But theyeat also many berries, such as those of the Loranthaceae, and variousarillate seeds.Behavior.?"Wliile I watched the nest attended by the female alone,a second vireo once arrived following close behind her. After de-livering the food she had brought, she flew off ; and then the strangeralighted upon the rim of the nest, looked in, uttered a few low notes,then hurried away in pursuit of her. Soon she returned, gave aninsect to one of the nestlings, and settled in the nest to keep themwarm. Then the other vireo, who had followed her to the nest,alighted on the supporting branch close beside it and turned to faceher. From the color of his eyes, brighter red than those of the female,I took this bird to be a male. Although full grown, the conspicuousyellow corners of his mouth, and his imperfect plumage, revealed liisimmaturity. On his perch almost within reach of the nest, he swayedfrom side to side, voicing the while low, weak notes, and opening widehis mouth, as if begging for food. Then he began to deliver typicalvireo song notes, clear but disjointed. The mother seemed to dis-approve and opened her mouth threateningly toward him; but hecontinued his queer performance for several minutes, until sheplucked a seed from the cluster beside the nest and flew away withit, with the young male in close pursuit.Voice.?Like the red-eyed vireo, the yellow-green vireo is amongthe most tireless and persistent of songsters. His song so closely re-sembles that of his relative that without hearing the two within ashorter interval of time than is usually possible it is difficult to sayhow they differ. Sturgis (1928) states that the yellow-green vireo'ssong "differs more in tone than character from that of V . olivaceaof the United States * * * The brief phrases of which it con-sists, are slighter, sharper pitched and less musical than those of itsnorthern relative." She evidently refers, not to the Central American YELLOW-GREEN VIREO 331V. -flavomriclis flavoviridis, but to V. flavovwidis insularis, the breed-ing race of the Canal Zone.In Costa Rica, the yellow-green vireo sings, in a clear, soft, warblingvoice, vi't'ee viree viree vireo. The di-syllable is the most common phrase, and an indefinite number maybe repeated before the trisyllable is uttered. A brief but distinct in-terval separates the phrases. The vireo sings like a true master ofthe art of happy living?he has taken to heart the doctrine of 7iilnimis of the ancients. He is not, like Gray's thrush, a spendthrift ofhis music, and is too wise to indulge his delight in song with long-continued, passionate outbursts that drain the cup of melody to thevery bottom, and oblige the exhausted songster to pass a period ofsilence while it slowly fills again, and he has recovered the energyand the mood to sing once more. Eather, he takes his pleasure insweet sounds with moderation, and lets them escape two or three ata time, with pauses between, that he may continue to utter themthrough the bright, warm days, and need never be silent because hehas indulged to excess his love of singing.I have never, to my knoAvledge, heard the female sing, and believeher incapable of song. Her characteristic utterance is a sharp, drawn-out call, which I have sometimes in my notes referred to as a rattle,sometimes as a churr. She also voices a sharp, nasal chaaa. Underthe stress of great excitement, both sexes utter harsh, rasping, nasalscolds.It is perhaps worthy of note in passing that among the local birds,certain individuals of Cherrie's tanager {Ramphocelus costaricen-sis)?the most songful of our tanagers?deliver a song so similar tothat of the yellow-green vireo in tone, phrasing, and long durationthat I have sometimes been deceived by it. But as a rule the tanager,a bigger bird, sings in a fuller, more forceful voice than the vireo.Field marks.?The yellow-green vireo is easily distinguished, byvoice as well as appearance, from other members of the family resi-dent in its Central American breeding range. The red eye, coupledwith the light superciliary stripe, is a very good diagnostic character.But for a brief period in spring, as well as in fall, migrating red-eyedvireos mingle with the yellow-green vireos, and then greater acumenis required for correct identification. The best distinguishing marksare the heavier blackish lines bordering the slate-gray crown of theredeye, and the absence on this bird of the yellow which suffuses thesides and under tail coverts of the yellow-green vireo.Enemies.?I know of no particular enemies of the adult yellow-gi-een vireo. Doubtless some fall prey to hawks; but I have neverwitnessed this?indeed, here in El General, I scarcely see two birdscaptured by hawks in the course of a year. The smaller sets of eggs ? 332 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMtwo or three instead of the three to five of the red-eyed vireo, and abreeding season scarcely longer?indicate that the shorter migra-tions of this species are accomplished with fewer losses than the longflights of its northern relative.The nests are sometimes?probably very frequently?pillaged bysnakes. On May 22, 1910, while passing near a nest situated about 6feet above ground on a drooping branch of a sotacaballo tree be-side the Rio Pacuar, I found the parents very much excited, utteringtheir nasal rasping scolds with great vehemence. Examination re-vealed the nest empty ; but with a little searching I found, in the grassbelow, a small green snake with a partly feathered nestling in itsmouth, already dead. After killing the serpent, I discovered thesecond nestling in the grass close by, and returned it to its nest. Hadthe nestlings jumped from the nest at the snake's approach, and thereptile then dropped upon them? As I was about to depart, I espieda second snake, brown and much larger, in the bushes below thesame tree, on the bank of the river. It had doubtless been attractedby the commotion and would probably have devoured the secondnestling if this had escaped the green snake?and possibly the smallergreen serpent too.A very different sort of destroyer of the vireo's eggs and nestlingsis Swainson's toucan {Rhamphastos sivainsonii) . During the monthswhen most of the smaller birds are nesting, parties of these huge-billedbirds fly from the forest into the scattered trees of the pastures andplantations, filling the breeding birds with rage and dismay. Theirarrival is heralded by the calls of alarm and distress of anxious parents ; their progress marked by the darting forms of indignant flycatchersand wherever they pass they leave a trail of rifled bird nests. It isprobable that the swallow-tailed kite also devours the nestlings of theyellow-green vireo, for I have seen it pillage nests of other birds thatbreed in the same trees.Once, on a coffee plantation on the Pacific slope of Guatemala, anIndian, misunderstanding my request that he take me to see any nestshe might find, brought me one of the yellow-green vireo, containingthree half-grown vireo nestlings, and one of the red-eyed cowbird.All were in a flourishing condition, and but for their unfortunateremoval, the vireo nestlings might have been raised beside their foster-brother as sometimes happens with the red-eyed vireo. Although Ireturned the nest to the tree where the man said it had been found,next morning all four nestlings were dead.Fall.?Southern Costa Rica is probably the wettest district on thegenerally dry Pacific side of the American Continent between Wash-ington and Colombia. Here, where June is usually a period of heavyrainfall, the yellow-green vireos cease nesting in this month. My YELLOW-GREEN VIREO 333latest date for the departure of the nestlings is June 23. Thereafterthe males rapidly become silent. Farther north, where the climate isdrier, they continue to nest through July. Thus I found a nest nearAlajuela, Costa Rica (at 3,500 feet elevation), with nestlings on July7; near Colomba, on the Pacific slope of Guatemala at 3,000 feet, onewith eggs on July 18, and another with nestlings on the 26th. Herethe males sang much during July. I have no evidence as to a secondbrood, and I doubt very much that in El General the birds raise morethan one in a season.In September the yellow-green vireos depart for the south. Theyare now silent; and their withdrawal is an inconspicuous event, insharp contrast to their song-proclaimed arrival in February. Were itnot for the fact that the bird watcher is at this season scanning thetreetops for the advent of warblers and other migrants from thenorth, he would hardly become aware of their departure. My latestdates for this vireo are September 27, 1935 (San IMiguel de Desampar-ados, Costa Eica, 4,500 feet), and September 14, 1936 (El General,3,000 feet). When my thoughts were again directed to the bird bythe request to prepare this account, at the end of Septeinber 1942, 1began to search for those that earlier in the year had nested in thetrees in front of the house, but in vain, for all had silently departed.Griscom states that in Guatemala they have not been found afterOctober 1.[Author's note : Mr. Skutch has asked me to look up the referencesthat I have to certain publications that were not available to him whenhe wrote the foregoing account. Some of these are rather interestingbut, with one exception, there is nothing in them that will add muchof sufficient importance to what he has written to warrant quotingfrom them here. James Lee Peters (1931) has published a compre-hensive paper on the status, distribution, and liabits of this speciesand its subspecies, to which the reader is referred for details. Butthe following items should be included here : Plumages.?"Juvenile.?No specimens in fresh juvenile plumageseen, but judging from partly moulted juvenals the bird has a plum-age like that of F. oUvaceus, but the lateral underparts with a muchmore extensive and deeper yellowish wash."Immature.?Acquired by a complete post-juvenile moult involvingall tracts except the primaries, secondaries, greater wing coverts andtail. In Guatemala this plumage is complete by the beginning of thethird week in August. "Adult winter.?Not distinguishable from immature plumage; ac-quired by a complete post-nuptial moult beginning about the middleof July and complete before the first of September. 334 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM "Nuptial.?The number of wintering specimens available is notsufficient to determine with any exactness how extensive the pre-nuptial moult is. I have examined specimens in the American Mus-eum taken in western Amazonia between 2 February and 3 April whichwere undergoing a moult of the primaries. A prenuptial moult of theprimaries is an exception among oscine birds."Winter.?He says on this point: "That the winter home of thespecies is in Amazonian Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia, is, Ithink well established." He gives a number of records on which thisstatement is based.I might add here that I have collected from various sources themeasurements of 17 eggs, in addition to those given by Mr. Skutch.These average 20.6 by 14.7 millimeters; the eggs showing the fourextremes measure 21.5 by 15.0, 19.9 by 15.3, 19.0 by 14.5, and 21.3 by14.0 millimeters.Since the above was written, Richard F. Miller has sent me data ontwo nests of the yellow-green vireo observed by him in San Luis Potosion June 20 and 21, 1942. Both nests were quite inaccessible, but thebirds were seen to alight upon them. The first was in a large treewith beechlike bark and rhododendronlike leaves, on the bank of ariver in a wood ; it was about 45 feet up over the stream and suspendedfrom a horizontal fork at the end of a branch about 25 feet long. Thesecond was in an enormous deciduous tree, 5 feet thick, in a meadowcontaining a few widely scattered trees and near a wood ; it was over15 feet above ground on the lowest limb and suspended from a hori-zontal fork at its end.] DISTRIBUTIONBreeding range.?The breeding range of the yellow-green vireo isfrom northern Mexico (southern Sonora, Nuevo Leon, and centralTamaulipas) south to eastern Guatemala and western Costa Rica.There is a single breeding record from extreme southern Texas, nearHarlingen, in June 1943.Winter range.?The winter home of this species is in the Amazonianregion of Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia.Casual records.?Besides having nested there once, this vireo hasbeen found three times in Cameron County, Tex. : Fort Brown, August23, 1877 ; Brownsville, June 7, 1892 ; and Mission, September 19, 1937.Also a specimen was collected at Godbout, Quebec, on May 13, 1883;and another near Riverside, Calif., on September 29, 1887.\Egg dates.?Costa Rica : 23 records, March 27 to June 30 ; 13 rec-ords. May 6 to June 3, indicating the height of the season.Mexico : 2 records, June 20 and 21. RED-EYED VIREO 335VIREO OLIVACEUS (Linnaeus)RED-EYED VIREOHABITSContributed by Winsor Maebett TylerSpring.?The trees are leafing out fast when the red-eyed vireoarrives in New England from its tropical winter home. Many of thespring migrants are already here before him, and his song may passunnoticed at first, except by an experienced ear, among the chorus oftheir voices. Only a practiced eye, too, will catch sight of him where,high over our heads, he is singing?a little green bird surrounded bythe green leaves of the elms and maples. When we do find him, wesee that he is well out on the smaller, drooping branches, constantlymoving about among the leaves, hopping along the twigs, or takingshort, quick flights to other branches. He is feeding, picking upinsects from the leaves all about him, singing as he goes, in short,hurried phrases that do not interrupt his continual search for food.Hour after hour, day after day, he sings from our woodlands, fromthe trees on the shore of our streams, and from the tall elms along thestreets of our towns and villages?like a happy laborer, whistling athis work.Courtship.?Aretas A. Saunders (1938) writes: "The males singvigorously between nestings, and on one occasion I observed courtshipand a courtship song at this time. The date was July 28, 1933, andthe male sang its song in a soft whisper, audible only a short distance.During the singing his wings trembled, and he moved about in frontof his intended mate, who sat silently watching and finally flew away,with him in pursuit."Years ago, late in May 1909, I saw a bit of courtship behavior be-tween a pair of red-eyed vireos. The birds were near at hand, inplain view, not far above my head. My attention was drawn to themby hearing some unfamiliar notes, high-pitched and rather squeakyin tone, but uttered very quietly, made ujd of fine little trills and somelong-drawn-out, faint whistles, not suggesting a vireo at all. At thetime I described their actions thus (Tyler, 1912) :The two birds were very near each other ; so uear that their bills might havetouched, although they did not. The male, or at least the bird who played theactive role, faced the side of the other bird, so that their bodies were at rightangles. * * He rocked his body, especially his head, from side to side, hisbill sweeping over the upper parts of the other bird, never touching her, nor,indeed, coming very near it, for his head was above and a little to one side ofher back. In swinging from side to side, he moved slowly, but with a tensenesssuggesting strong emotion. In contrast to the fluffy female, the feathers of themale were drawn closely about him, so that he looked slim and sleek. The neckseemed constricted, giving him a strangled appearance. 336 BULLETIN 19 7, m>riTED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMThree years later, again in May, I caught another glimpse of vireocourtship. A male, with feathers puffed out, perched in a low shrub,was singing in characteristic phrases, but without tone quality, thenotes given softly in a whispered voice. He flew toward the otherbird, and they darted away together.Nesting.?The red-eyed vireo builds a dainty little pensile nest sus-pended usually from a forking, horizontal branch of a shrub, or lowbranch of a tree, rather below the level of our eyes as we walk throughsecond-growth. The nest is a beautifully finished piece of workman-ship, constructed of fine grasses and rootlets, bits of birch bark, andpaper from wasps' nests, bound together and to the supportingbranches with spider's or caterpillar's webbing, and, perhaps the mostconstant material, long, narrow, flexible strands of grapevine bark,which help to hold up the cup of the nest. It may be ornamentedon the outside v/ith bits of lichen. Dr. Arthur A. Allen (1932) saysthat it has thinner walls usually than other vireo's nests.F. N. Whitman (1924) found a nest only 2 feet from the ground, andCharles R. Stockard (1905) speaks of one "situated sixty feet from theground in the topmost boughs of a gum tree." Five to ten feet eleva-tion is the usual height.Minna Anthony Common (1934) gives this interesting account ofthe building of a nest : July 6, 1933; Foiind : two pieces of tangled ravellings hanging from fork ona beech branch four feet from the ground. It appears like the starting of anest. * * *July 8: We have decided it is a nest, for there are a few more ravellingshanging down a foot or so.July 9, 1933 : Late afternoon : We saw both Red-eyed Vireos {Vireo olivaceus)working at the nest. The bunches of untidy ravelling hang lower, but there isno bottom to the nest. Birds are absolutely silent.July 10: Some loose network may be seen forming a bottom to the nest.Several bits of birch bark have been skillfully intertwined on the outside. Bothbirds work. The ravellings are mostly caught up.July 11, 6 a. m. : Saw one bird pull a small, short strand of bark from a deadoak twig. He carried it to the nest and was back for another in four min-utes. * * * At the end of the day the nest appeared finished. All looseravellings had been caught np and fastened. A piece of paper % by l^A inches insize is spread across the floor of the nest inside.Francis Hobart Herrick (1935) describes in detail the constructionof a red-eyed vireo's nest which he watched from a distance of 10 feet.The following is a condensed account of his report : With a vireo or an oriole and all such as build similarly suspended nests,the work of construction must needs begin with securing the first fibers to twoor more twigs destined to support the future nest. Upon these primary strandsis built up a loose, free-hanging fibrous mass, the primary nest mass, and this isgraduUy extended downward while, pari passu, the attachment is carried out-ward along each of the divergent twigs. A rim and bottom are gradully pro- RED-EYED VIREO 337duced in a way to be presently described, and the gap or open side, opposite tliefirst-formed hanging mass, long remains open ; with the vireo, as with the oriole,it is filled in last. * * *The most striking actions of this vireo that I noticed on the first day were asfollows: (1) winding silk and fine threads of bast over the forks of the twig atabout an inch from their junction; (2) building downward from this supporta loose mass of fibers?corresponding to the primary nest mass of the oriole'swork?perfectly secured but giving no hint of the beautiful cup-shaped structurethat was to appear; (3) carrying the suspension forward and downward untilone could recognize part of the concave wall of the future nest, or hardly morethan the half of a vertically divided cup; (4) finally, attempting to rest in theimperfect nest and use the breast for molding long before it was physically pos-sible to make such movements effective. * * *At four o'clock on the second day the frame of this nest was evidently com-pleted. It was composed almost wholly of fine bast, bark strippings, andspider's silk, the latter having been derived from the egg-cocoons of such speciesas nest on the under side of leaves or against the clapboards of houses. * *In reality the work of construction lasted nearly five days, but from the closeof the third day until the end of the fifth, active labor gradually slowed down ; the hen would sit in her nest-cup for longer and longer intervals, until June 4,or the sixth day from the start, when she remained to lay her first egg, whichwas deposited after 7 :30 o'clock in the morning.W. J. Erichsen (1919) says of nest building: "A peculiarity of thisspecies which I have noted both in Liberty county [Georgia] and else-where is a habit the birds have of destroying partially completed nestsbuilt by them. I once watched a pair remove piece bj^ piece the materialfrom a nearly completed nest, and weave it into another which they hadbegun a few yards distant."Ora Willis Knight (1908) gives the measurements of a nest as "twoand a half inches deep outside by one and a half inside, the ex-ternal diameter was three and the diameter inside two inches."Eggs.?[Author's note: Four eggs generally make up the set forthe red-eyed vireo, but sometimes only three are laid and very rarelyfive may be found. These are mostly ovate, rarely slightly elongated.They are pure lusterless white, and are usually sparingl}' marked,chiefly toward the larger end, with fine dots of small spots of reddishbrown, or darker browns, or blackish; rarely an egg is nearly orquite immaculate; an occasional set may contain eggs that show largespots or small blotches of light browns, but such cases are rare. Themeasurements of 50 eggs in the United States National Museumaverage 20.3 by 14.5 millimeters ; the eggs showing the four extremesmeasure 22.9 by 15.8, 21.8 by 16.3, and 18.3 by 13.2 millimeters.]Young.?Ora W. Knight (1908) gives the incubation period as 12to 14 days. M. G. Vaiden, of Rosedale, Miss., writing to Mr. Bentof nests he had studied carefully, found that the eggs hatched in 11days. He began his count the day after the last egg was laid : in onecase it took an extra day. 338 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMSamuel A. Harper (MS.) noticed so much irregularity in the incu-bation of the female in three nests under his observation that none ofthe eggs hatched.Aretas A. Saunders (1938) states that "both sexes share in incuba-tion and feeding young" and Forbush (1929) says: "Occasionally apair may raise two broods in a season."Francis H. Herrick (1904) remarks: "Wlien the young Vireos werea week old I began to watch their nesting habits at night more closely,and found that, while the male apparently roosted near by, the femaleinvariably slept on the nest. At from fifteen to twenty minutes aftersundown she was regularly at her post, and even at this hour usuallyfast asleep. So profound, indeed, were her slumbers, that I could oftenenclose her in my hand and stroke her feathers without awakingher. She slept with her head twisted back and buried deep in thefeathers between the shoulders. An apparently headless trunk or alittle ball of feathers was all that could be seen, and the only motiondiscernible came from the regular pulsations of breathing." WilliamBrewster (193(>) recounts a somewhat similar experience.T. C. Stephens (1917), from a close study of a nest, found that"75% of the work of feeding was done by the female, while the maledid about 25%."Francis H. Herrick (1904) reports that "the eyes began to open onthe fourth day, when the first faint cheeps of the young were audibleat a distance of a few feet," and, according to Burns (1921) , the youngbirds leave the next 12 days after hatching.Young redeyes are very importunate ; even when they have reachedfull size they fly to their parents, begging for food, using a ratherlong, sustained note that sounds like theet and is strangely like thefood call of the black-capped chickadee.My notes, taken in the Wliite Mountains, N. H., some years ago,state : "I was surprised to find parents still feeding their young. OnSeptember 8th, one or two young birds (fully grown, of course)followed an adult about, insisting on being fed. The old bird had agreen worm in its bill, and one of the young birds, darting towardit, snatched it away from the parent, who tried to escape it seemed.Apparently the familj'^ ties were holding by a thread, and the old birdwas doing its best to sever them."Forbush (1929) reports a case of a bird feeding young, on Septem-ber 15, barely able to fly.Plumages.?[Author's note: Dr. Dwight (1900) calls the nataldown of the red-eyed vireo "pale drab-gray" and describes the juvenalplumage as "above, including lesser wing coverts, drab. Wings andtail olive-brown, edged with bright olive-green, brightest on the sec-ondaries and tertiaries. Below, silky white, faintly tinged on the sides RED-EYED VIREO 339and crissum with primrose-yellow. Superciliary stripe dull white;lores and postocular streak dusky. Iris walnut-brown."The first winter plumage is acquired by a partial postjuvenal moltin August and September "which involves the body plumage, the wingcoverts (often the tertiaries) but not the rest of the wings nor thetail. * * * In plumage young and old are practically indistin-guishable in the autumn, but the iris of young birds is brown whilethey remain with us. * * * The iris becomes dull red before thebirds return in the spring."The nuptial plumage is apparently acquired by wear, with verylittle fading apparent. A complete postnuptial molt for birds of allages occurs in August and September.]Food.?Waldo L. McAtee (192G) speaks well of the redeye as adestroyer of harmful insects, saying : About six-sevenths of the total food of the Red-eye is composed of animalmatter, almost exclusively insects, and one-seventh is vegetable. The latter ismade up almost entirely of vpild fruits which are eaten chiefly in the monthsfrom August to October. The favorite kinds are blackberries, elderberries, andfruits of spicebush, dogwood, Virginia creeper, and sassafras.A third of the total food of this vireo is composed of caterpillars and moths,mainly the former. Tent catorpillnrs, a beech caterpillar {Fentonia nMrihesia) , the hackberry caterpillar {Chorippe celtis), and various oak caterpillars (Ac-romjcta afflicta, Apatcla, Notodonta, and Anisota) are among the injurious formsdevoured. Mr. Forbush reports the Red-eye to be one of the most effectiveenemies of the gipsy and browntail moths ('07, p. 205), and Dr. Tothill creditsthe species with destroying in various years, from 11.4 to 89.5 per cent of thebroods of fall webworms in Nova Scotia ('22, pp. 5-26) . Beetles, hymenoptera, bugs, and flies rank next to lepidoptera in importanceas food items of the Red-eye. The beetles include a considerable number offorms injurious to trees.Then follows a list of 43 species. He continues : Other insects, more or less prejudicial to the welfare of the forest which theRed-eyed Vireo includes in its bill-of-fare are the walking-sticks, cicadas, spittleinsects, tree hoppers, leaf hoppers, scale insects, sawflies, and carpenter andother ants.While we are reciting the good record of this bird we may as well add thenames of a few agricultural pests : the striped and spotted cuciimber beetles(Diahrotica vittata, and D. 12-punctata) , the click beetles (adults of wireworms)the clover-root weevil (Sitona hispidula) , the clover leaf weevil (nypera punc-tata), and the plum curculio ( Conotrachelus nenuphar) . The only harm done by the Red-eye is the destruction of certain useful para-sitic and predatory insects, but in view of the splendid record of the bird in feed-ing on injurious forms, this may well be overlooked. We may be sure that in itsindustrious scanning of our woodland trees, the Red-eyed Vireo is ever on thealert to snap up the insects infesting them, by far the most of which are notthere for the good of the trees.To this long list T. C. Stephens (1917) adds other items. He says:One of the most interesting facts obtained in the study of these Vireos was thatland snails formed a considerable portion of the nestling diet. In the food 340 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMtable (Table II) it is shown that the snails stand fifth in numerical abun-dance. * * *Some of the snails were specifically identified. Thus twelve snails wererecognized as Succinea avara, and all of them delivered by the female. Atvisit No. 210 the male carried one specimen of Bifidaria armifera. * * *At visit No. 264 the female bird brought a spider to the nest which was of aspecies that I had noticed frequently in the beaks of the parent birds, as wellas often in the woods. I was able to take this specimen from the beak of theparent bird and preserve it for later identification. In due time this specimenwas identified by Mr. J. H. Emerton as Epeira trivittata Keyserling. This is avery common round web spider, whose web is stretched between the branches ofthe trees at all heights up to fifteen or twenty feet, and would thus be readilyfound by the foliage gleaning Vireos.Arthur T. Wayne (1906) makes an interesting observation on thefood of the redeye in the Southern States in autumn. He writes : The controlling influence upon the migration of this bird in the autumn is thepresence or absence of the seeds (fruit) of the magnolia (Magnolia grand iflora) . The fruit of this beautiful tree begins to ripen during the first week of September,but the greater part ripens through October, and many seeds remain in the conesuntil November. The color is coral-red, and some specimens are about three-fourths of an inch in length, but the great majority average about half an inch.These seeds contain a large amount of oil, and when this vireo has been feedingupon them for any length of time it becomes very obese. There are many l)eauti-ful trees on this plantation, and I have often sat on the steps of the old Colonialhouse and watched these birds while feeding upon the fruit. The tree that hasthe most fruit attracts nearly all the vireos in a radius of perhaps a quarter ofa mile, and I have often counted as many as fifty vireos in one tree. As long asthe fruit is to be had, the vireos remain, but as soon as the supply becomesscarce or exhausted, the vireos depart.Paul Wanamaker, Dean Forest, and Charles L. Bull (1931) reporton the food which they fed to an injured young vireo. They say : "'Infive minutes he was taking blue-bottle flies from our finger-tips, hav-ing refused our earlier attempts to feed him bits of earth-worms. Adaddy-long-legs was snapped up with great gusto, as were moths, adragon-fly, a small inch-worm, etc. * * * His entire menu for thefirst day consisted of: 40 blue-bottle flies; 30 elderberries; 25 grass-hoppers ; a tentful of tent caterpillars, of which he ate at least 15 ; 5moths ; 2 daddy-long-legs ; 1 dragon-fly ; 1 young locust ; 1 inch-worm ; 1 spider ; 1 bee ; 1 butterfly?a total of 123 distinct items."Behavior.?Dayton Stoner ( 1932) writes thus of the favorite habitatof the red-eyed vireo: "Woodland with an undergrowth of slendersaplings from six to ten feet high seems to appeal to this bird most."Such a situation affords the vireo with a nesting site not far aboveground in the low shrubs and a source of food in the high canopy ofthe overhanging branches. These requirements, however, are oftenclosely approximated in settled communities, so that the redeye, al-though a forest-loving bird, nevertheless finds congenial surroundingsfor summer residence in the orchards, gardens, and tree-bordered RED-EYED VIREO 341 streets of the built-up sections of the country. It sometimes spendsthe summer months even in the parks of our hxrge cities with blocksof houses on all sides, such as, rarely, the Public Gardens in Boston,Mass. ; but in the main the red-eyed vireo is a woodland bird.Perley M. Silloway (1923) describes thus the vireo's habitat in thewestern Adirondack forest : "The Red-eyed Vireo abounds in almostall aspects of the forest except dense bog woods. It lives in clearingswhere small trees have obtained a standing, in the borders of the Burn,and in open woodlands of every kind. It is one of the birds whosepreferences for timber lead them into the virgin forest, but there theyrequire a 'margin' of some sort, usually a brook or a bog, which breaksthe forest canopy in some degree. Though it nests most commonlyin sapling growth it hunts and sings in the trees, preferably such asform spreading tops at medium height, but it has little to do withevergreens."A. A. Saunders (1942), writing of the bird in the woodlands ofNew York State, reports that it is "common in Oak-Hickory, Maple-Beech, Cherry-Aspen, and river valley forests. In the higher Maple-Beech, where hemlock is missing and few birds occur, it is still acommon bird. It is also common in mature forests." Saunders alsostates (1938) :Red-eyed vireos live so much of the time in the trees, hidden among thickfoliage, that they are not frequently observed. If it were not tor the song, theirpresence, in spite of their numbers, would be difficult to detect. * * * I havedistingiiished individuals mainly by the location of their singing trees. This isfairly definite, a particular bird being found in the same tree day after day.Occasionally it leaves the tree and sings elsewhere, but it does not wander fromplace to place as the blue-head does.This would seem to be evidence that the red-eyed vireo has definite territory,but I have never observed fighting or jealousy over such territory.Francis Zirrer, of Hayward, Wis., writes to Mr. Bent of a case ofbelligerency in the redeye. He says: "During the nesting seasonsome are quite pugnacious. They will attack almost any bird thatventures too close to a nesting tree. The little bird will drop like astone almost at the head of the culprit. During the nesting season ofthe pileated woodpecker, when the big birds flow low and silently,like phantoms between the tree trunks and decaying stumps, I haveseen this vireo strike the big bird with such force that it nearly lostits balance, looked and acted surprised?and flew away."The red-eyed vireo is not commonly so tame while on the nest as thesolitary, but Ernest Harold Baynes (1922) tells the following astonish-ing story of his "friendship" with a female redeye : I knew that vireos have a reputation of being willing to meet one half way inthe matter of making friends, so I decided to make an advance. First I went toa dry and sandy spot where I turned over large stones until I found some ants' 342 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM eggs. Then I selected a dead weed stalk about five feet long and Impaled anant's egg on the sharp end of it. With this I very quietly approached the nestand held out my offering at arm's length, until the white morsel was withinI'each of the vireo. At first she looked alarmed, then astonished, and a momentlater rather bored, for she turned her head away and refused to look at theproffered food. But I waited patiently, holding the tip of the weed stalk withineasy reach. At last she turned her head as if the temptation to do so could nolonger be resisted. She now showed keen interest in the proceedings, took asharp look at the white delicacy at the end of the stalk and then as much asto say, "Hello; that is an ant's egg, isn't it?" stretched out her neck and took it,* * *A moment later she confirmed her own opinion by taking another ant's egg inthe same way, after which I quietly withdrew, leaving her to digest both herfood and her strange experience.Next day I returned and after she had promptly accepted a few more ants' eggsfrom the end of the week-stalk, I stepped up a little closer and offered one be-tween my thumb and forefinger. After a little hesitation she took it, and fromthat moment we were on friendship's footing. She seemed much interested, if notactually pleased, whenever I approached ; she would sometimes stretch far outover the rim of the nest in order to make quick connections with the food Ibrought her, and did not mind in the least if I stroked her on the head or backwith my finger. At first she was a little nervous when I stroked her throat,and when I persisted she slipped off the nest. But as she got used to me sheminded less and less and would even allow me to lift her off her eggs and put hergently back. * * *Many people were introduced * * and children especially experiencedecstatic joy at the privilege of feeding and stroking a vrild bird in her own home.Several times in the course of the past 30 years or so, I have seena red-eyed vireo acting in a very odd manner. It has occurred whenan adult is feeding a full-grown young. The old bird suddenly de-parts, for a moment, from its normal behavior ; it draws its featherstight to its body and sways slowly from side to side through a widearc, certainly as great as 90?. If the two birds are facing each other,as they usually are, the bill of the adult points successively far to eachaide of the young bird, over and over. The old bird gives the impres-sion of being in a sort of trance, or as if it were trying to influence theother bird in some strange way, although the action probably has amore prosaic explanation. Behavior of a similar nature is describedunder "Courtship." I have never seen any other species of vireo actin this manner.Arthur B. Williams (1940) describes a very unusual observation:On July 16, 1934, the writer, while engaged in making a survey of the birdpopulation of a tract of beech and sugar-maple forest near Cleveland, Ohio, no-ticed a Red-eyed Vireo {Vir-eo olivaceus) plunging into a shallow pool of waterat the edge of a woodland brook. This unusual behavior was repeated severaltimes. The bird would work down a small branch overhanging the pool untilit was about eight inches above the water. Here attention was fixed at a certainspot in the water below, and shortly the bird would dive in head first as akingfisher does. It would then fly to a perch in a tree about twenty-five feetaway and eat something apparently captured from the water. Once the bird RED-EYED VIREO 343 was nearly submerged and had to stop to shake the water off its plumage beforeeating the morsel.Voice.?The red-eyed vireo is preeminently famous as a singer. Noother of our birds sings so persistently all day long, and because hislong-continued series of utterances, given in short, emphatic phrases,going on for hours, calls to mind a lengthy sermon, he has won the title "Preacher." Of this epithet Bradford Torrey ( 1889) , with sly humor,expresses this opinion : "The red-eye's eloquence was never very per-suasive to my ear. Its short sentences, its tiresome upward inflections,its everlasting repetitiousness, and its sharp, querulous tone long sincebecame to me an old story ; and I have always thought that whoeverdubbed this vireo the 'preacher' could have had no very exalted opinionof the clergy."Nevertheless the preacher sings a cheerful song, and when we studyit we find it has its good points as well as its shortcomings. It is tire-some chiefly because most of the phrases end with a rising inflection,giving the impression of a long series of interrogations, the voiceseldom coming to rest as before a period. Wilson Flagg (1890) bringsout this point very well when he says : "We might suppose him to berepeating moderately, with a pause between each sentence, 'You seeit,?you laiow it,?do you hear me??do you believe it?' All thesestrains are delivered with a rising inflection at the close, and with apause, as if waiting for an answer."Some characteristic phrases, which I have jotted down while listen-ing to a singing bird, may be written, cherry-o-ioit, cheree, sissy-a-wii,tee-oo, and many others. At times during the day, and invariably atearly dawn, when the bird is not feeding, it sings with almost perfectregularity, the phrases following each other at a rate of from 60 to80 per minute, and rarely a bird will sing for a considerable periodwith little variation in his phrases.There is commonly much variety in the song. A. A. Saunders (MS.)says that the number of different phrases used by an individual birdmay be as many as 40, altlix)ugh about 25 is a more usual repertoire."The pitch of the song," he says, "varies from D ' ' ' ' to E flat " ',half a tone less than an octave. The quality is clear, but rather color-less, as compared to the other species of vireos. The phrases are com-posed of two to five notes each, five-note phrases being rather rare.The notes of the phrases are generally joined abruptly and only rarelyslurred together. This gives the song a choppy effect, and with thecolorless quality gives the effect of talking rather than singing ? talking in short, quick, exclamatory or interrogatory sentences."Several observers have noticed that the bird occasionally introducesa phrase resembling a note of the crested flycatcher, and Francis H.Allen (MS.) says: "I have heard it imitate the olive-sided flycatcherand the bluebird." 344 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMWilliam Brewster ( 1938) , writing of birds at Lake Umbagog, Maine,says : "The males sing regularly until late August, and on September26, 1899, one sang feebly and brokenly," and A. C. Bent says in liisnotes that he heard a bird singing daily from August 31 to September14, 1900, in Massachusetts.Albert R. Brand (1938) gives the approximate mean vibration fre-quency of the song as 3,600, rather higher than that of the white-eyedand yellow-throated vireos.The common complaint note may be written queee^ a discontented,petulant call, inflected downward, about as long as the catbird's snarl.Field marhs.?If an observer is near enough to a redeye to see thevireo bill, the gray crown, bordered by black lines, the black linethrough the eye, the white underparts, and the unmarked wing, it is aneasy bird to identify. The red iris, seen only at very short range, isnot a reliable field mark.The red-eyed vireo in plumage is remarkably like a Tennesseewarbler, but the needlelike bill of the warbler and its paler side of thehead distinguish the two birds.Enemies.?In addition to the the danger of capture by small hawks,the red-eyed vireo is subject to attack by the red squirrel, and thechipmunk, as the two following quotations show, respectively. Wil-liam Brewster (1936) relates this observation made at Concord, Mass.,on June 10, 1906 : Again this afternoon Gilbert heard the Vireos crying anxiously. Looking outthrough the screen door, he saw the Squirrel on the branch within a few inchesof the nest, eating something. Presently he dropped a portion of the shell ofone of the Vireo's eggs. He then wiped his face with his fore-paws and wipedthe latter on the branch. The next minutes he bent forward until his head andfore shoulders disappeared in the nest and almost immediately reappeared onthe branch with another egg in his mouth. The Vireos assailed him franticallyand one of them struck him with her bill when he was in the nest. Probablybecause of their attacks, he almost immediately took the second egg off with him,running up the main trunk of the tree until lost to sight in the foliage of its crown.A. A. Wood (1920) records a similar experience, saying: "Lastspring (June 8, 1918) I noticed a Red-eye excited over something, thensaw a chipmunk climbing the sapling the bird was in. Wlien he wasabout eight feet up, the vireo darted down knocking him to the ground.The other bird was on the nest at the end of one of the branches."In reference to the cowbird's relation bo the red-eyed vireo, HerbertFriedmann (1929) says : "This bird is so frequently imposed upon thatit is difficult to think of the Cowbird getting along without the pensile,cup-like nests of the Red-eye. No species suffers more and few as much.* * * Occasionally this Vireo covers over, or buries (under a newnest floor), the parasitic eggs as does the Yellow Warbler, but on theother hand it has been known to incubate Cowbirds' eggs even whennone of its own were present, and almost always seems not to mind RED-EYED VIREO 345the strange eggs in the least. Three and four of the parasitic eggs aresometimes found in a single nest."Harold S. Peters (1936) reports the finding of two species of liceand three species of mites in the plumage of this vireo.Fall.?After its long period of song is over the red-eyed vireo be-comes comparatively inconspicuous. In the autumn migration it isnot a prominent bird. We meet an individual or two, associated withmany of the flocks of warblers as they pass through in September, butperhaps more often we come upon a single bird low down in shrubberywhere it is feeding on berries, notably those of the wild and cultivatedcornels. Here, in marked contrast to its behavior earlier in the season,it moves about slowly, generally in complete silence, although it maysometimes give a peevish snarl.It seems strange to see a redeye in this subdued mood, for allthrough the summer we have associated the bird with constant activ-ity, quickness, and an almost endless stream of loud, exuberant music.Even at this late date, however, the bird is on the watch for insects andcontinues to examine in its characteristic, careful manner the twngs andwhat leaves remain on the branches, twisting its neck to peer underthe leaves with a sidelong glance.Wlien it flies it progresses with an easy grace, more rapidly thanthe warblers and chickadees which are flitting through the treetopsat this season, and it surpasses its companions in its precise coordina-tion of movement.Taverner and Swales (1908), in their study of the fall migration atPoint Pelee, report that red-eyed vireos are regular migrants fromlate in August to late in September, some remaining "well into Octo-ber," but not many birds are seen on a single day, except on rareoccasions.Alexander F, Skutch writes to Mr. Bent of the migration throughCentral America thus : "The red-eye vireo is know^n in Csntral America only as a transient,journeying between its winter home in South America and its breedingrange in North America. Its migration route, north of the Isthmusof Panama, appears to center in the highlands?where, however, it isseldom recorded as high as 6.000 feet?but extends down the Carib-bean slope to sea level and on the Pacific slope to at least 1,500 feet.September is the month when these vireos pass southward in greatestnumbers; but stragglers have been recorded in Costa Rica as late asOctober 28 (Cr.rriker) and November 10 (Skutch). The northwardpassage begint late in Maich and is at its height in April, while anoccasional straggler may be seen early in May. As they pa:;3 throughCentral America the red-eyed vireos are met singly or in small flocks.1 have not heard them sing while migrating."843290?50 23 346 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMDISTRIBUTIONRange.?From southern Mackenzie to southern Brazil and Peru.Breeding range.?The red-eyed vireo breeds north to central north-ern British Columbia (Fort Halkett) ; southern Mackenzie (mouth ofNahanni Eiver, 8 miles below Fort Wrigley, and probably BlackwaterEiver) ; central eastern Saskatchewan (south end of Reindeer Lakeand Pelican Narrows) ; north-central Manitoba (Norway House andOxford House) ; central Ontario (Lac Seul, Kapuskasing, Lake Abi-tibi, and probably nearly to the south end of James Bay) ; southernQuebec (upper St. Maurice Eiver, Quebec, Tadousac, St. Louis andthe Forillon Peninsula, Gaspe County, and Anticosti Island) ; andpossibly Newfoundland (St. Anthony and Cape Anguille). East toNewfoundland (Cape Anguille) ; the Maritime Provinces of Canadaand the Atlantic Coast States south to central Florida (Kissirnmeeand Tarpon Springs). South to central Florida (Tarpon Springs) ; and the Gulf States to northeastern Coahuila (Sabinas) ; southernand central Texas (Houston, Kerrville, Fort Worth, and Decatur) ;west-central Oklahoma (Cheyenne) ; central Kansas (Harper and St.John) ; southern South Dakota (White Kiver and Eapid City) ; pos-sibly nortlnvestern Wyoming (Newcastle) ; central and southwesternMontana (Great Falls, Anaconda, and Missoula) ; northern Idaho(Coeur d'Alene) ; and northern Oregon (Imnaha, Union, possiblyOakridge, and Portland). Also breeding rarely in Colorado (proba-by Clear Creek Valley and possibly Estes Park) ; and found in sum-mer in northeastern Utah (near Jensen). West to western Oregon(Portland) ; western Washington (Seattle and Bellingham) ; andwestern British Columbia (Alberni and Beaver Creek, Vancouver Is-land, Hagensborg, Hazelton, and Fort Halkett) . That the species is extending its range is evidenced by the fact thatprevious to 1923 there was only a single record for Oregon, but it hasnested in that State since 1924. The first record for Utah was madein 1937 and one was seen in Newfoundland in 1910 where the first speci-men was taken in 1916.Winter range.?The winter home of the red-eyed vireo is in north-ern South America, east at least to Ituribisi Eiver, British Guiana;and the Eio Tapajoz in Brazil. South to Matto Grosso, Brazil(Chapada), and possibly Bolivia and southern Peru (Sierra de Cara-baya). West to central Peru (Sierra de Carabaya and Moyobamba) ; and the interior valleys of Colombia (Santa Elena and the SantaMarta region).Migration.?Late dates of spring departure are Ecuador?Eio Suno,March 15. Colombia?Don Diego, May 3. Panama?Perme, April17. Costa Eica?Basin of El General, April 21, Guatemala ? Chuntuque, April 26. British Honduras?Mountain Cow, April 17. RED-EYED VIREO 347Yucatan?Chichen Itzti, April 3. Cuba?Habana, May 17. Ba-hamas?Cay Lobos, May 2.Early dates of spring arrival are: El Salvador?San Salvador,April 1. British Honduras?Cayo District, March 23. Cuba?San-tiago de las Vegas, April 9. Bahamas?Nassau, IMarch 15. Florida ? Pensacola, March 18. Alabama?Greensboro, March 27. GeorgiaSavannah, March 17. North Carolina?Statesville, April 5. Vir-ginia?Variety Mills, April 6. West Virginia?French Creek, April7. District of Columbia?^^Vashington, April 21. PennsylvaniaPittsburgh, April 26. New York?Buffalo, April 28. Massachu-setts?Springfield, April 30. Vermont?St. Johnsbury, May 5.Maine?Waterville, May 7. Quebec?Quebec, May 13. New Bruns-wick?Scotch Lake, May 2. Nova Scotia?Sidney, May 18. PrinceEdward Island?North Kiver, May 18. Louisiana?Thibodaux,March 12. Mississippi?Biloxi, March 24. Arkansas?Monticello,March 24. Tennessee?Nashville, March 30. Kentuclry?BowlingGreen, April 8. Indiana?Kichmond, April 18. Ohio?Oberlin,April 27. Michigan?Kalamazoo, April 25. Ontario?Guelph, May3. Missouri?St. Louis, April 22. Iowa?Cedar Eapids, April 20.Minnesota?Lanesboro, May 7. Manitoba?Killarney, May 15. Tex-as?Kerrville, March 30. Kansas?Manhattan, April 20. South Da-kota?Rapid City, May 7. North Dakota?Fargo, April 20. Sas-katchewan?Regina, May 15. Wyoming?Laramie, May 23. Mon-tana?Bozeman, May 19. Alberta?Camrose, IMay 14. MackenzieFort Providence, May 15. Idaho?Rupert, May 17. WashingtonCollege Place, May 8. British Columbia?Edgewood, May 12.Late dates of fall departure are: British Columbia?OkanaganLanding, September 7. Washington?Everson, September 11.Idaho?Bayview, September 16. Mackenzie?Simpson, August 19.Alberta?Glenevis, September 19. Montana?Fortine, September 13.Wyoming?Laramie, September 15. Saskatchewan?Yorkton, Sep-tember 18. North Dakota?Argnsville, September 22. South Da-kota?Sioux Falls, September 24. Manitoba?Aweme, September 25.Minnesota?St. Paul, October 1. Iowa?Keokuk, October 1. Mis-souri?St. Louis, October 10. Arkansas?Helena, October 5. Tex-as?Cove, October 19. Wisconsin?Superior, October 1. IllinoisLake Forest, October 6. Michigan?Detroit, October 12. OntarioOttawa, October 18. Ohio?Columbus, October 13. TennesseeAthens, October 5. Mississippi?Bay St. Louis, October 15 ; Saucier,November 17. Louisiana?New Orleans, October 16. Prince EdwardIsland?North River, September 17. New Brunswick?St. John, Sep-tember 24. Nova Scotia?Wolfville, September 21. Quebec?Mont-real, September 19. Maine?Bath, September 30. New HampshireDublin, September 29. Massachusetts?Boston, October 19. NewYork?Rhinebeck, October 20. Pennsylvania?Berwyn, October 26. 348 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMDistrict of Columbia?Washington, November 11. West Virginia ? Bluefield, October 8. Virginia?Sweet Briar, October 11. SouthCarolina?Clemson College, October 11. Georgia?Athens, October26. Florida?Fort Myers, November 13. Bahamas?Watling Is-land, October 5. Cuba?Habana, October 30.Early dates of fall arrival are: Bahamas?Inagua, September 17.Cuba?Habana, August 28. Tamaulipas?Matamoros, August 21.Honduras?Laucetilla, September 1. Guatemala?Pahajachel, Au-gust 26. Nicaragua?Escondido River, September 10. Costa RicaCarrillo, August 31. Panama?Tapia, August 29. Colombia?Bu-ritaca, September 18.Only two recovery records for banded red-eyed vireos are available.One banded at Lansing, Mich., on July 26, 1931, was found dead onJuly 30, 1931, about 125 miles away at Harbor Beach, Mich. An-other banded at Norristown, Pa., on August 26, 1932, was found deadon June 7, 1938, about 1% miles from the place of banding.Casual records.?A specimen from Greenland was received in Co-penhagen in 1844. There are two specimen records from California : San Diego, October 6, 1914, and Los Angeles, October 10, 1931; andtwo from Arizona : Huachuca Mountains, May 20, 1895, and CoyoteRange, September 3, 1934.Egg dates.?Massachusetts : 54 records, May 25 to July 20 ; 39 rec-ords, June 1 to 15, indicating the height of the season.Minnesota : 12 records, June 3 to July 2 ; 9 records, June 3 to 11.New York: 65 records, May 10 to June 30; 40 records, June 1 toJune 11.Nova Scotia : 6 records, June 18 to August 16 ; 3 records, June 26 toJuly 5.Virginia : 6 records. May 17 to June 24 ; 3 records. May 28 to June 5.VIREO PHILADELPHICUS (Cassin)PHILADELPHIA VIREOHABITSThis vireo was described and named by John Cassin (1851) froma specimen collected in September 1842 in some woods near Philadel-phia. For a number of years thereafter very little was known aboutit, though Thure Kumlien wrote to Dr. Brewer (Baird, Brewer, andRidgway, 1874) that he had been familiar with the bird in DaneCounty, Wis., since 1849, and had "collected it every year since thatperiod, finding it both in the spring and fall."William Brewster (1880) was the first to give us any considerableaccount of the distribution and habits of the Philadelphia vireo, withspecial reference to its occurrence in New England, as observed by him PHILADELPHIA VIREO 349and others, between 1863 and 1876, including his own introduction tothe species at Lake Umbagog in 1872, He says of its haunts there : Although in the breeding season the species * * * seems to be generally dis-tributed throughout the wooded region about Umbagog, it occurs less commonlyin the heavily timbered portions. As upon its first arrival, it chiefly affects theyounger growths which have sprung up in the clearings and over old burnt lauds.Its favorite haunts are the coppices of wild-cherry and gray birches by road-sides ; rocky knolls tufted with black and yellow birches ; the various small ti'eesand tall shrubs that fringe the wood-edges ; and deserted farms, where coolgroves of vigorous young paper-birches and glaucous-foliagcd poplars aregrouped over the neglected acres, with intervals of sunny openings between. Butwherever found, like most of the members of the Vireosylvia group, it makes itshome in the tops and upper branches of the trees, rather than in the thicketsbeneath.Then, 17 years later, came Dr. Jonathan Dwight's (1897) full andinteresting account of the Philadelphia vireo, as he had observed itnear Tadousac, Quebec, on the Saguenay River. He w\as struck withthe close resemblance between the red-eyed vireo and the Philadel-phia, saying: "Both frequent the same localities in the wilderness,but the Philadelphias rather shun civilization and rarely appear, likethe Red-eyes, in the village trees. Both prefer to sing in the upperbranches, but I have seldom found the Philadelphias in the ramblinggroves of birches which are the especial delight of the Red-eyes, andthey are more partial to the low, bushy, second growth or copses ofalders si^rinlded with stray trees."The Philadelphia vireo is now known to breed in the Canadian Zonein southern Canada, from Alberta to New Brunswick, and in theNorthern States, from North Dakota to Maine, in all suitable wilder-ness localities. L. M. Terrill writes to me : "The Philadelphia vireois common and well distributed in suitable localities wherever I havebeen in Gaspe, especially in the extensive alder growths in bottom-lands and along streams. I also found it among dense patches ofmountain maple (Acer spicatwn) and alders well up on mountainslopes, but it was not as common here as along streams."Syring.?From its winter home in Central America this vireomigrates northward in spring over most of the United States, at leastfrom the Mississippi Valley eastward. It does not seem to be abun-dant anywhere, and generally not even common. It is, however,easily overlooked, as it sings very little on migration and often fre-quents the tree tops, where it moves about in a very leisurely mannerand where its colors blend well with the fresh foliage ; for these reasons,it may be commoner than is generally supposed. It passes throughthe States in May, coming along with waves of the later migratingwarblers. It is generally seen at this season in the small trees, thickets,and shrubbery bordering streams or marshes, but sometimes in thetree tops of the more open woodlands or in scattered trees. 35(3 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMAmong the many attractive bits of nature writing from the pen ofthat gifted writer, Mr. Brewster's (1880) account of this vireo atUmbagog Lake, Maine, is one of his best : The Philadelphia Vireos usually arrive at Umbagog during the last week ofMay, or, if the season be a late one, in early June. They come with the lastflight of Warblers, when the forest trees are putting on a drapery of tendergreen, and the moose-wood is white with snowy blossoms. They are most aptto be found singly at this season, though they not infrequently associate withthe various species of Warblers. For some time after their first appearancethey are severely silent, and, although by no means shy or suspicious, theirhabits are so retiring and unobtrusive, that their presence may be easily over-looked. Their motions are essentially like those of all the rest of the genus.A branch shakes, and you catch a glimpse of a pale lemon breast that matcheswell with the tint of the thin foliage. Tlien the whole bird appears, hoppingslowly out along the limb, and deliberately peering on every side in that near-sighted way peculiar to the tribe. Occasionally its search among the unfoldingleaves in rewarded by the discovery of some luckless measuring-worm, whichis swallowed with the same indifference that marks all the bird's movements.Ton begin to feel that nothing can disturb the equanimity of the little philosopher,when it suddenly launches out into the sunshine, and, with an adroit turn,captures a flying insect invisible to human eyes. The next moment there is adim impression of glancing wings among the trees, and it has vanished. Thereis little chance of finding it again, for its voice has as yet no place in the chorusthat rises from the budding thickets around.Nesting.?Evidently Ernest T. Seton (1891) was the first to reportthe discovery of the nest of the Philadelphia vireo, which he foundon the west slope of Duck Moimtain in Manitoba; his report follows:"On June 9, 1884, near Fort Pelly, on the upper Assiniboine I founda Vireo nesting in a small bluff of poplar and willow. The chosensite was in the twigs of a willow some 10 feet from the ground ; thenest was the usual suspended cup formed of fine grass and strips ofbirch bark. * * * Qn June 13, the Vireo began to sit on her foureggs. I shot her and found her to correspond exactly with Coues'description of fhiladelphicus^ except that the yellow on the breastwas quite bright. The eggs closely resembled those of the Red-eyedVireo, but were destroyed by an unfortunate accident before theywere accurately measured."Although Mr. Brewster (1903) had been more or less familiar withthis vireo in the Lake Umbagog region since 18T2, it was not untilJune 14, 1903, that he succeeded in finding its nest. He describes theincident in his inimitable way and gives one of the best descriptionsof the nest and its location that I have seen. He had been listeningto the song of a vireo, wliich he suspected might be a Pliiladelphia ; it was concealed in the top of an aspen (Populus tremuloides) , and hewas gathering stones to throw into the tree to make it move, when itoccurred to him that some vireos sing on their nests. He writes : This reflection caused me to drop the stones and begin looking for a nestinstead of a bird. A few moments later I saw, through an opening in the PHILADELPHIA VIREO 351foliage, in the very middle of the tree, scarce ten feet below its topmost twigsand fully thirty feet from the ground, a globular object of a light grayish browncolor. Holding my glass on it with some difficulty?for I was now actuallytrembling with excitement?I made it out clearly to be a small, neatly-finishedand perfectly new-looking Vireo's nest attached to a short lateral twig of one ofthe long, upright terminal shoots that formed the crown of the aspen. Lookingstill more closely I could see the head of the sitting bird and even trace theswelling of his throat and the slight opening of his bill as he uttered his dis-connected notes. Soon after this he left the nest and flying to a neighboringtree alighted on a dead twig where I had a clear view of him and quickly satisfiedmyself that without question he was a Philadelphia Vireo.The next morning the nest was taken, with the three fresh eggs thatit contained ; dissection of the female showed that no more eggs wouldhave been laid, Brewster contip.iies : The nest was hung, after the usual Vireo fashion, in a fork between twodiverging, horizontal twigs. One of these, a lateral branch from the uprightshoot already mentioned, is rather more than a quarter of an inch in diameterand evidently formed the chief support, as the other twig is scarce thicker thanthe flower stem of a buttercup. The nest is firmly bound to both for some dis-tance along its rim. It is much longer than broad, measuring externally 3.20inches in length, 2.75 in width, and 2.65 in depth ; internally 2.00 in length,1.50 in width, and 1.35 in depth. Its walls are more than half an inch thickin iJlaces, its bottom almost a full inch. It appears to be chiefly composed ofinterwoven or closely compacted shreds of grayish or light brown bark, appar-ently from various species of deciduous trees and shrubs as well as, perhaps,from dried weed stalks. The exterior is beautifully decorated with strips ofthe thin outer bark of the paper birch, intermingled with a few cottony seedtufts of some native willow still bearing the dehiscent capsules. Most of thesematerials are firmly held in place by a gossamer-like overwrapping of gray-greenshreds of Usnea, but here and there a tuft of willow down or a piece of curledor twisted snow-white bark was left free to flutter in every passing breeze. Itwould he difficult to imagine anything in the way of external covering for abird's nest more artistically appropriate and effective. The interior, too, isadmirably neat and pretty, for it is lined with the dry, tan-colored needles ofthe white pine (among which are a very few .slender blades of grass), arrangedcircularly in deep layers around the sides and bottom of the cup in which theeggs were laid,Philipp and Bowdish (1917) found three nests of the Philadelphiavireo in northern New Brunswick in 1916, "The situations where nestswere found, as well as where additional birds were observed, were, inevery instance, on islands or along the shores of river bottoms, with agrowth of willow and alder. "The nests found were in slender forks of alder, at a height varyingfrom ten to seventeen and one half feet (the latter actual measure-ment). On June 17, two of these nests held four eggs each, the thirdfive." Their description of the nests is not very different from Mr.Brewster's.Dr. Harrison F. Lewis (1921) was fortunate enough to have a pairof Philadelphia vireos build their nest in a young rock maple, within30 feet of the front door of his residence, in the suburbs of the city of 352 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMQuebec. He made the best of this unusual opportunity by watchingthe birds and their nesting activities from June 12 to July 14, 1919,climbing to the nest daily and often more than once a day. As a re-sult of his observations, has has given us a full, accurate, and detailedaccount of the home life of these birds, to which the reader is referredfor details. Although the locality was near the citj^ it was notstrictly urban, for a woodland area of mixed deciduous and coniferoustrees, which was two or three square miles in extent, aproached towithin about 30 feet of the nesting-tree. He describes the nest asfollows : About four feet from the top of a young Rock Maple which was one of a rowof such trcvs a small twig sprang at a considerable upward incline from thesouth side of the main stem of the tree, which was here one and one-fourthinches thick. The twig itself is one-fourth of an inch in thickness, and at adistance of one and one-eighth inches from the main trunk it divides at an angleof fifty degrees into two nearly equal parts, each of which is about five incheslong and ends in a cluster of leaves. The pensile nest, which was well hiddenand shaded by foliage, was hung from the fork between these two small twigs,at a height of twenty-four feet, eight inches, from the ground. Although thelower part of it is roughly circular, the rim is "gathered" to the twigs, so thatthe opening is shaped like a sector of a circle, with the two twigs as radii, andthe outer rim as the arc of the sector. The acute angle between the twigsis filled in for about three-quarters of an inch with nesting material. The "gathering' of the rim of the nest, causing the walls to be incurved at the top,must have been efficacious in retaining eggs and young within it when it tossedand swayed in the breeze, as it did very much in the slender top of thetree. * * *The outside of the nest is composed of fine strips of the outer bark of WhiteBirches, dead grass blades, coarse white hen feathers, bits of frayed white twine,one spider's white "cocoon," and much spiders' web. The birch bark is muchthe most conspicuous material. Ends of strips of it have been left loose, sothat they flutter in the breeze, breaking up the outline of the nest and helpingto conceal it. At points where strips of birch bark cross one another they some-times seem to possess mutual adherence without visible binding material, asthough they had been gummed together, perhaps by the bird's saliva. The nestis fastened to the twigs by spiders' web, strips of birch bark, string, and grassblades. The interior is lined chiefly with fine dead grass stems and flowersplkelets, but the lining includes also one or two needles of the White Pine andseveral white hen feathers, finer than th.ose on the outside of the structure.The building of the nest was apparently well under way when Dr.Lewis first noticed the birds on June 11, and on June 15 the nest heldthe first egg. Both birds seemed interested in the construction of thenest, but, as he usually could not distinguish between the sexes, he wasnot sure that the male did any work on the nest.Charles E. Doe has sent me his notes on a Philadelphia vireo'snest that he found on a small island at the north end of MooseheadLake, Maine, in July 1907. On July 7 he saw both birds working onthe nest, 35 feet from the ground, attached to a lower limb of a bigyellow birch on the edge of some dense spruce timber; there was no PHILADELPHIA VIREO 353 other birch in the vicinity. When lie found the birds biiikling, onJuly 7, they had woven only a few strands close up in the crotch ofthe twig; two days later it was nearly finished, and on the 10th itwas all done. On July 15, he wrote in his notes : "The first egg musthave been deposited on the 12th, for I climbed to the nest for thefirst time on the 13th, when it contained two eggs and the bird wason the nest ; today, when I climbed to it, she sat very close and allowedme to part the leaves that partly hid the nest; I watched her fullyfive minutes and then she flew only when I put my hand within sixinches of her. Up to then, she had simply raised her head andwatched me closely ; and how pretty she was with her yellowish whitethroat ! When she flew, she kept out of sight for about ten minutes,and then returned and moved about in a nearby tree, but did notscold as vireos do."He found another nest in the same locality on June 29, 1909. Thiswas 40 feet from the ground in a thick maple, a lone tree amongspruces, on the edge of heavy spruce timber at the top of a ravine.Both nests contained full sets of four eggs each.Mr. Terrill has sent me a photograph (pi. 45) of a nest that hefound 8 feet from the ground in an alder along a small stream ; thisnest had some birch bark in its composition, as well as a quantity ofusnea, which can be seen hanging below the nest; he says that theuse of usnea in the nest is diagnostic.Eggfi.?From three to five eggs may constitute a full set for thePhiladelphia vireo, four being the commonest nmnber and five veryrare. These are very much like the eggs of the red-eyed vireo,though slightly smaller. Mr. Brewster (1903) describes his eggs as "elongate ovate in shape and pure white, sparsely spotted with burntumber, chocolate and dull black." Philipp and Bowdish (1917) saythat their eggs "were white with dark brown spots and specks, thelarger spots tending to have a rusty border". Mr. Doe's eggs aremarked on the large end with dark reddish brown. The scanty mark-ings are sometimes scattered over the whole surface, but more oftennearer the larger end of the egg. The measurements of 50 eggs average19.2 by 14.0 millimeters ; the eggs showing the four extremes measure21.7 by 14.9, 21.6 by 15.3, 17.8 by 14.0, and 18.5 by 13.0 millimeters.Young.?Qv. Lewis (1921) found the incubation period for thePhiladelphia vireo to be about 14 days. He saw the male relieve thefemale and sing while incubating on the nest. Mr. Brewster (1903)also saw the male singing on the nest. In the nest that Dr. Lewisstudied the first ^^g hatched on June 29; during that afternoon thepair changed places on the nest at very frequent intervals. "Duringthe hour and twenty-five minutes between 12.40 p. m. and 2.05 p. m.the pair had exchanged places on the nest eight times, the intervalsbetween reliefs being sometimes as short as three, four, or six minutes." 354 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMThe remaining three eggs hatched during the following two days. "It will be noted that the first, second, and third young birds werehatched in fourteen days after the laying of the first, second, andthird eggs, respectively. The time required for the incubation ofthe fourth egg lies somewhere between thirteen days, three hours,twenty-eight minutes and thirteen days, eleven hours, sixteen minutes[between times of examination]. If all the eggs were warmed alikewhen a bird was incubating, and if the several eggs required equalamounts of incubation to cause hatching, it would appear that incu-bation began as soon as the first egg was laid, but that it was morebroken and ineffective between the laying of the third and the fourtheggs than at other times."He gives the following brief outline of the chief events at the nest : June 15. First egg laid.June 18. Fourth (last) egg laid.June 2U. First egg hatched.July 1. Third and fourth eggs hatched.July 3. First cries of young heard.July 12. Three oldest nestlings left nest.July 13. Fourth nestling left nest.July 14. Last observation of nestlings (two only).On July 6: "Between 12.51 p. m. and 2.35 p. m. the young werefed at 12.52, l.lT, 1.20, 1.28, 1.39, 1.46, 1.52 (twice), 1.51 (twice), 2.20,2.27 and 2.29, a total of thirteen feedings in one hour and forty-fourminutes. I have recorded two feedings at 1.52 p. m. because at thattime I saw the two parent Vireos stand on opposite sides of the nestand both feed the young at once. At 1.54 both birds were in sightnear the nest at once and they fed the young in quick succession. At1.20 and again at 1.52 one of the old birds, after feeding the yomig,removed excrement from the nest and flew away with it. The youngbirds were brooded from 12.52 to 1.16, from 1.28 to 1.36, from 1.39 to1.46, and from 2.29 to 2.35, when I departed for a few minutes."For an early morning feeding period, he made the following rec-ord: "Between 4.00 a. m. and 7.00 a. m. the young were fed at thefollowing times : 4.06, 4.17, 4.29, 4.31, 4.38, 4.39, 4.40, 4.42, 4.45, 4.48,4.49, 4.50, 4.52, 4.55, 4.56 (twice), 5.30, 5.54, 5.55, 6.00, 6.02, 6.03, 6.04,6.05, 6.09, 6.12, 6.15, 6.18 (twice), 6.21, 6.28, 6.30 (twice), 6.32, 6.35,and 6.51, a total of thirty-six feedings, or nine for each young bird, inthe first three hours of morning activity. * * * Between 4.05 and4.57 there were sixteen feedings, between 4.57 and 5.53 there was onefeeding only, and between 5.53, and 6.53 there were nineteen feedings.It will be observed that the feedings exhibit a marked periodicity, asthough the young were given regular meals, with intervals of com-parative rest." He noted other evidences of periodicity at other times,and saw some evidence that the parents were not satisfying their ownhunger during the periods of rest. "Food which I saw the adult Phil- PHILADELPHIA VIREO 355adelphia Vireos take to their young consisted largely of naked cater-pillars, brown, green, and whitish, and of flying insects of variouskinds."For two or three days before the last nestling finally left the nestthe young birds were more or less restless and frequently hopped aboutin the tree or fluttered down to the ground, or even made short flights.They were often rescued from the ground and placed in the tree orreturned to the nest. At such times the parents were quite excited andaggressive ; Dr. Lewis says : "I climbed the tree again and, as I drewnear the youngster, one of the parents dashed at me, crest erect, scoldingloudly and rapidly. This was continued until I left the tree and wasthe first scolding I had received from an old bird when I was in thetree."Dr. Dwight (1897) writes:It is evident that but one brood is raised in a season. I have seen youngbirds as early as July 7, comical little chaps largely bare skin and the promiseof a taiL At this tender age they are unwilling to essay flight except when urgedby anxious parents to make a clumsy, flying leap from one twig to another, butthey are knowing enough to keep quiet when they hear a crashing in the bushes,and as they become older they lose no time in moving quickly away. I havefound them in alder thickets or along some of the bushy cattle paths which endabruptly at steep walls of rock or lose themselves in small clearijigs. In fact Inever could tell when or where I might run across the birds, young or old, but dur-ing the latter part of July, when the moult is in progress, it is almost impossibleto find them anywhere.Plumages.?Dr. Dwight (1900) describes the natal down as "paledrab-gray." And he says that the juvenal plumage is "similar to F.olivaceus and F. gilvus, but darker above and distinctly yellow below.Above, wood-brown, darker and olive tinged on the back and wingcoverts. Wings and tail clove-brown with olive-green edgings. Belowprimrose-yellow, auriculars, orbital ring, and superciliary stripe buff-yellow. Lores and postocular streak dusky."An incomplete postjuvenal molt, involving the contour plumage andthe wing coverts, but not the rest of the wings or the tail, begins atthe end of July This produces a first-winter plumage, which is prac-tically indistinguishable from the winter plumage of the adult. Dr.Dwight describes this as "similar to the previous plumage but greenerwith a grayer crown, and brighter yellow below. Above, dull olive-green, slate-gray on the pileum. Below pale canary-yellow, whiter onmiddle of abdomen. Sides of head pale greenish or grayish buff,superciliary stripe paler; transocular streak dusky." He says thatthe adult, at this season, is usually paler yellow below with a largerarea of white on the abdomen.There is apparently no prenuptial molt, but specimens taken at theproper season to show it are not available. The sexes are practicallyalike in all plumages. 356 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMFood.?Of the 84 stomachs of the Philadelphia vireo in the collec-tion of the Biological Survey, Dr. Edward A. Chapin (1925) foundthat only 75, taken in May, June, and September, contained enoughfood to show the percentages.All but 4.34 percent of the animal food consisted of insects, theremainder being spiders. Lepidoptera formed the largest item, 24.13percent of which were caterpillars and 2.17 percent adult moths andbutterflies ; in September the percentage of these lepidopterous itemsrose to 45.53, or nearly half of the entire food for the month.Coleoptera ranked next, 24.82 percent for the year. "The beneficialbeetles eaten are almost all of the family Coccinellidae, or ladybirds,well-known as enemies of plant lice and scale insects. Thirteen speciesof ladybirds have been identified from stomachs of the Philadelphiavireo, and these make up a little more than a fifth of all the beetlesconsumed, or about 5 percent of the total food." Tliis is a bad show-ing for this vireo, but it is more than offset by all the injuriousbeetles destroyed, such as leaf-eating beetles (Chrysomelidae), 7.99percent; weevils (Rhynchophora), 3.43 percent; wood-boring beetles(Buprestidae and Cerambycidae) and the plant-feeding Elateridae,together, less than 1 percent. The mildly beneficial dung beetles andthe leaf-chafers (Scarabaeidae) taken together amount to 6.94 percent.Of the Hymenoptera, "approximately 14 percent of the annual sub-sistence of the Philadelphia vireo is composed of wasps, bees, andrelated insects. Here are to be found some of the most beneficial ofall insects, the parasitic ichneumon flies and the minute chalcids. Onthe other hand, the kinds of ants eaten are usually injurious, espe-cially the large, black, carpenter ants {Camponotus herculeanus) , andeven if some of them do no direct damage they are indirectly injuriousin fostering plant lice."Flies (Diptera) form 11.76 percent of the food, including midgesand both injurious and beneficial forms. True bugs (Hemiptera)make up 10.46 percent of the annual food, including the injuriousstink bugs but not the useful stink bugs or the beneficial assassin bugs,so that the score is good in this group. Other insects amount toonly 1.14 percent.The seasonal average of vegetable food was but 7.22 percent of thewhole, although in September it amounted to 18.71 percent. Thefruits identified were bayberries, wild rose hips, and wild grapes,but no cultivated fruits or seeds w^ere found.Dr. Lewis (1921) says of the feeding habits of this vireo : The birds fed usually in the border of the woods, among the lower limbs ofthe Red Oalcs and Red Maples, less often among the White Birches or the RockMaples. The pair which resided among the White Birches a hundred yardsbehind my house probably fed among them. PHILADELPHIA VIREO 357 I found the Philadelphia Vireos to be rather more active in their feeding habitsthan are the Red-eyed Vireos. The trick mentioned by Dwight of hanging back-downward, like a Chickadee, from a cluster of leaves while picking insects fromit was observeil frequently, but the majority of the food of this species seemedto be taken while the birds were on the wing. They would leap repeatedly intothe air to snap up passing insects with distinct "click's" of the bill. At othertimes they were seen hovering like Kinglets before branch-tips while theygathered food therefrom. The work done by this pair of Philadelphia Vireosmust have aided greatly in keeping the trees in their vicinity free from insectpests this summer.Behavior.?Much of the normal behavior of this vireo is describedin Mr. Brewster's remarks under "Spring" and in Dr. Lewis's accountof its feeding habits above. But Dr. Lewis (1921) wrote on July 3,describing a rather unusual performance:Observation began at 6.16 a. m., when one bird was on the nest, while no songof the species was to be heard. No change was noticed until 6.24 a. m., w-henthe male began singing among the oaks. A moment later, still singing, heflew to a perch near the nest. The next instant there was a series of excitedsqueakings, and both birds were away in a mad chase, lighting at frequent inter-vals with one another, apparently without mercy. They would circle aroundand around, passing repeatedly through the nesting-tree, then turn face to faceIn the air and struggle furiously, with much lluttering of wings and sharp click-ing of bills, until often they fell nearly to the ground. After the first few sec-onds the squeakings stopped and shortly afterward the male began to sing ashe fought. As the birds passed through the tree they would sometimes alightfor a moment, two or three feet apart. After the briefest of pauses the femalewould attempt to fly back to the nest, when the male would dash after her againand the fight would be resumed.Voice.?Every observer seems to agree that the song of the Phila-delphia vireo closely resembles that of the red-eyed vireo, yet there isa subtle difference that a practiced ear can detect, especially if thetwo are heard at the same time. Mr. Brewster's (1880) first impres-sion follows:Contrary to what might be expected from the apparently close relationshipof the two birds, the song of this species does not in the least resemble that ofVireo gilvus. It is, on the other hand, so nearly identical with that of V. oUv-aceiis that the most critical ear will, in many cases, find great difiiculty in dis-tinguishing between the two. The notes of philadelphicus are generally pitcheda little higher in the scale, while many of the utterances are feebler, and the wholestrain is a trifle more disconnected. But these differences are of a very subtilecharacter, and, like most comparative ones, they are not to be depended uponunless the two species can be heard together. The Philadelphia Vireo lias,however, one note which seems to be peculiarly its own, a very abrupt, double-syllabled utterance, with a rising inflection, which comes in with the generalsong at irregular but not infrequent intervals. I have also, on one or two occa-sions, heard the male, when in pursuit of his mate, utter a soft pseuo, similarto that sometimes used by Vireo olivaceus and both sexes when excited or angryhave a harsh, petulant note exactly like that of V. yilvus.Referring to the "double-syllabled utterance" mentioned by Mr.Brewster, Dr. Dwight (1897) says: 358 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM I would merely emphasize the fact that it is the essence of the song and entersinto it at as i-egular intervals as any of the other notes. It is a liquid note, be-ginning the song and occupying about three fifths of a second for the two syl-lables of which it is composed, on both of which considerable emphasis is laid.There seems to be a slight trill or ripple between the syllables when heard closeat hand and the inflection rises slightly on the latter. A pause follows, ap-proximating one and two fifths seconds, and the first note is again repeated, lessforcibly and slightly varied. Again the pause ensues, and now it is followed bya triple note, not interrogatory and indistinguishable from one of V. oUvaceus.Again the pause, this time followed by a repetition of the triple note, slightlyvaried so as to lose some of its sibilance, and after the customary pause of oneand two fifths seconds, the song is repeated from the beginning, nearly eightseconds having elapsed in completing one cycle. The four notes may be sug-gested by the syllables chur-r'we, chur-we, pst'-l-rc, psr'-r-re. * * *The speed at which the song flows is an interesting factor and is remarkablyuniform for each individual songster,? in fact, I could almost identify certainPhiladelphias and Red-eyes by timing their songs. V. pJiiladeJphicus sings atthe rate of from twenty-two to thirty-six notes a minute, averaging a trifle overtwenty-six, while V. olivaccus rattles on at the rate of from fifty to seventy,their song rate averaging a trifle over lifty-nine. * * *The male Vireos are in full voice during June, but toward the end of themonth the song period rapidly wanes, and after the first days of July their notesare not very often hoard save as a subdued warble at rare intervals.Also referring to Mr. Brewster's "double-syllabled utterance,"Philipp and Bowdish (1917) write : "In our experience with the birds,this distinctive song absolutely predominated with the general impres-sion of a song quite distinctive from that of the Red-eye, or, in fact,of any other Vireo we had heard. "These birds have the common scolding note characteristic of Vireos,but, in addition, they gave voice to several rather musical, but appar-ently protesting notes. In one instance, the female sung a subduedbut musical reply to the song of her mate who was at a little distancefrom the nest on which she sat."Dr. Lewis (1921) also says that it is certain that the female cansing, and that her song is sometimes, at least, made up of notes differingfrom any heard from the male. "The only songs which I know withcertainty were uttered by the female are two loud 'Doodle-ee?'s,' a fewvery low notes, and the song which she sang just after laying her lastQgg on June 18. This latter song was very sweet, clear, and simple,and was sung slowly for eight minutes in a low voice. It consisted ofa variety of notes, such as 'HMlit; ee-do-it; way-wer; ee-chew-ee;doo-we?; hiiUit-whew !', uttered over and over in a different ordereach time. The effect was charming."He seems to differ from Dr. Dwight in the rapidity of the song, forhe says : "On June 21 1 counted for five minutes the song utterances ofa bird which was singing this song [the one mentioned below] amongthe oaks, and found the number of utterances per minute to be seven,seven, nine, eleven, and six, respectively. A similar count for one PHILADELPHIA VIREO 359minute on June 22 of the utterances of a bird singing this song fromthe nest showed seventeen utterances to the minute, which I considerto be quite the highest rate at which I heard this song delivered."The discrepancy is perliaps due to the fact that lie was counting com-plete songs, while Dr. Dwight was counting individual notes.He says, of the song he counted : The song heard from the male from Juno 13 to June 22, inolnsive, was simple,but delightful; a low, sweet, gentle "Doo-we? whe6-hooey; doo-we? whoe-hooey,"uttered slowly and with long intervals between one utterance and the next.Sometimes the first utterance was elaborated into "Doodle-ee?", * * *On June 23, and often thereaftei', the male Philadelphia Vireo sang a songaltogether different from that which I have described. This new song wasloud and vigcirous, and was readily recognizable as a Vireo's song, although thetone in which it was given was not quite so full as is the tone of the song of theRed-eyed Vireo. It consisted of notes like "S-s-s-cApe! ee-oh-yuh ! ee-yoit!cheeb-ly !', and perhaps one or two others, repeated over and over in differentorders. * * *On June 25, when the female had left incubation to feed, the male, whilefollowing her through the lower branches of the trees, sang, in a loud voice, "Chee-6w-y ! hee-iih !," over and over again. This song was heard at such timesonly. Other loud songs which were heard often from this male after June 23were "Whde-hoit ! s-s-s-jerry !" and "S-s-s-chew-ee ! wh^e-hooey !" After July4 singing rapidly declined, the last song heard from this species being a fewloud notes on July 17, three days after I ceased to find the juvenals. * * *Other Philadelphia Vireos heard during the nesting-season sang similar loudsongs, but the songs of no two of them were exactly alike. * * j mightpoint out that many common song-phrases of the Red-eyed Vireo, such as itsplain little "Huh-huh," do not appear in any recognizable form in the songs ofthe Philadelphia Vireos heard by me, and that this seems to provide one readymeans of distinguishing between the songs of the two species.He mentions, also, "a mouse-like squeaking, a scolding note, a fine 'It, it, it, it, it,' and (from the female only) a 'Mew, mew'. * * *The 'Mew, mew' of the female apparentl}^ indicated readiness forcoition."Field marks.?A glance at the excellent colored plate published withDr. Dwighfs (1897) paper will show that the Philadelphia vireolooks very much like a warbling vireo with a pale yellow breast butslightly greener above and with the stripe over the eye less distinct.It also looks like a red-eyed vireo, minus the gray cap, distinctlybordered with dusky, and with more yellow beneath. The yellowthroat and breast of the yellow-throated vireo are a much deeperyellow, and there are two white wing bars on each wing. From thewarblers, some of which have a similar color pattern, it can be dis-tinguished by its heavier bill and stockier shape.Enemies.?We do not know much about the enemies of this vireo.Dr. Friedmann (1934 and 1943) could find only two cases where itwas parasitized by cowbirds, one in Alberta and one in Ontario, bythe Nevada cowbird and by the eastern cowbird, respectively. Prob- 360 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMably cowbirds are not too common in the regions where it breeds.Predators doubtless destroy some eggs, yonng and adult birds, butthis apparently has not been observed. Accidents may account forsome mortality.Fall.?Mr. Brewster (1880) draws this attractive picture of the fallmigration in Maine : At the close of the breeding season, when the brakes are turning brown, andoccasional maples along the lake shore begin to glow with the burning tints ofautumn, the Philadelphia Vireos join those great congregations of mingledWarblers, Sparrows, Woodpeckers, Titmice, etc., which at this season go troopingthrough the Maine woods. The specimens taken at Upton, in 1874, were in flocksof this kind, and several of them were shot in low bushes, an apparent exceptionto the rule previously given. But mixed society among birds, as well as men,is a great leveller of individual traits, and it is by no means uncommon on theseoccasions to find such tree-loving species as the Bay-breasted, Cape May, Black-hurnian, and Blue Yellow-backed Warblers, the Red-bellied Nuthatch, the Golden-crested Kinglet, and many others, consorting with Winter Wrens, WaterThrushes, and Canada Flycatchers in the thickets by wood-paths, or along thebanks of ponds or rivers ; and I know of no more interesting sight, especially ifit be a bright September morning, before the sun has risen above the trees. Thedark foliage of the alders and vilnirnums is frosted with innumerable dewdrops,which fall in sparkling showers where a Warbler hops or a Woodpecker taps onthe slender stems. Yellow and gold and scarlet liveries flash among the glossyleaves, as the active little forms appear and disappear, while the constantrustling and low-toned conversational chirping from the depths of the thicketsuggest all sorts of pleasing mysteries. It is a pretty picture, this gathering ofthe birds in the quiet depths of the forest.Winter.?The Philadelphia vireo spends the winter in CentralAmerica. Dickey and van Eossem (1938) call it a "common wintervisitant at the upper limits of the Arid Lower Tropical Zone bothalong the interior and coastal mountains" in El Salvador. A^Tiereusually seen, "the altitude was 3,500 feet, and, curiously enough, thespecies was never seen at any other altitude, even though apparentlyidentical conditions prevailed for at least 500 feet lower. In relativenumbers, 'pkiladel'phicus was slightly more common than gilvus andinvariably outnumbered the latter when especially favorable treesbrought the two species together. Sometimes as many as a dozenjyhiladelphicus could be found in a single food tree, but otherwise thespecies was, like most vireos, solitary."DISTRIBTJTIONRange.?Central Canada to Panama.Breeding range.?The Philadelphia vireo breeds north to north-eastern Alberta (Chippewyan) ; central Saskatchewan (Prince Al-bert) ; southern Manitoba (Duck Mountain and Winnipeg, and hasbeen recorded in summer at Churchill) ; central Ontario (Lac Seul,Moose Factory, Lowbush, and Lake Timiskaming) ; southern Quebec PHILADELPHIA VIREO 361(Blue Sea Lake, probably Quebec, Tadousac, and the Forillon Penin-sula, Gaspe County) ; and southwestern Newfoundland (Tompkins).East to Newfoundland. South to Newfoundland (Tompkins) ; northern New Brunswick (Tabusintac, Chatham, and Edmundston) ;northern Maine (probably Sourdnahunk Lake, and MooseheadLake) ; northern New Hampshire (Lake Umbagog and DixvilleNotch and possibly Franconia) ; probably northern New York (Adi-rondack region) ; northern Michigan (Sault Ste. Marie) ; northernNorth Dakota (Turtle Mountains) ; eastern Montana (Johnson Lake,probably migrating) ; southern Saskatchewan (Crescent Lake) ; andsouthern Alberta (Red Deer). West to central and eastern Alberta(Red Deer, Camrose, Lac la Biche, and Chippewyan).Winter range.?The winter home of the Philadelphia vireo is inCentral America from northern Guatemala (Volcan de Agiia andSecanquim) through El Salvador (Mount Cacaquatique) ; and prob-ably western Nicaragua; the higher portions of western Costa Rica(Liberia, San Jose, Guayabo, and the valley of El General) ; towestern Panama (Volcan de Chiriqui, Cocoplum, and Altoc Cacaoon the Azuero Peninsula). A specimen from Cozumel Island, Mex-ico, was recorded by O. Salvin in the Ihis for 1888 as taken in Janu-ary "during the last two years." It was probably accidental at thatdate.Migration.?Late dates of spring departure are : Costa Rica?SanJose, April 23. Veracruz?Presidio, May 10. District of Colum-bia?Washington, May 30. West Virginia?Wheeling, May 24.New York?Geneva, June 5. Mississippi?Deer Island, May 7 (pos-sibly accidental). Texas?Kemah, May 19. Kentucky?Lexington,May 16. Ohio?Youngstown, June 7. Missouri?Grandin, May 24.Illinois?Lake Forest, May 28. Wisconsin?Madison, May 29. Min-nesota?Duluth, June 2. South Dakota?Sioux Falls, May 31.Early dates of spring arrival are: Florida?Pensacola, April 18.District of Columbia?^Washington, May 4. Pennsylvania?Doyles-town. May 2. New York?Buffalo, May 3. Massachusetts?Lincoln,May 16. Maine?Dover-Foxcroft, May 12. Quebec?Hatley, May12. New Brunswick?Oromocto, May 18. Arkansas?Winslow,April 24. Missouri?St. Charles, April 26. Tennessee?Memphis,May 2. Kentucky?Versailles, April 30. Ohio?Oberlin, April 26.Ontario?Ottawa, May 13. Michigan?Ann Arbor, May 10. Iowa ? Des Moines, May 10. Wisconsin?Madison, May 10. MiimesotaMinneapolis, May 12. Texas?Galveston, April 9. Nebraska?Lin-coln, May 16. North Dakota?Fargo, May 24. Manitoba?Mar-garet, May 15. Saskatchewan?Regina, May 19, Alberta?Chip-pewyan, May 23.Late dates of fall departure are: Alberta?Camrose, September 8.Manitoba?Aweme, September 19. Wisconsin?Appleton, Septem-843290?50 24 362 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMber 30. Iowa?Giard, October 1. Louisiana?New Orleans, Octo-ber 29. Texas?Dallas, October 20. Ontario?Ottawa, September23. Michigan?Detroit, September 24. Ohio?Columbus, October12. Illinois?DeKalb, October 10. Tennessee?Nashville, October10. Mississippi?Bay St. Louis, October 15. Maine?Phillips, Oc-tober 2. New Hampshire?Dublin, September 29. Massachusetts ? Springfield, September 24. New York?Schenectady, October 1.Pennsylvania?McKeesport, October 5. District of ColumbiaWashington, October 5. West Virginia?Bluefield, October 2.North Carolina?Swannanoa, October 2. Georgia?Atlanta, Octo-ber 9. Florida?Pensacola, October 8. In the Atlantic Coast Statesthis species is apparently more common in fall than in spring.Early dates of fall arrival are : Minnesota?Lanesboro, August 18.Wisconsin?Madison, August 22. Iowa?Forest City, August 31.Michigan?Detroit, August 28. Ohio?Toledo, August 29. Illi-nois?Glen Ellyn, August 21. Kentucky?Versailles, August 28.Mississippi?Gulfport, September 19. Louisiana?Thibodaux, Au-gust 15. New Hampshire?Jaffrey, August 25. MassachusettsHarvard, September 5. New York?Eochester, August 28. Penn-sylvania?Jeffersonville, September 9. District of ColumbiaWashington, September 2. Florida?Pensacola, September 28.Guatemala?La Montanita, October 18. Nicaragua?Escondido Riv-er, October 21. Costa Rica?San Jose, October 21. Panama?Coco-plum, Bocas del Toro, October 29.Casual records.?There is only a single record each for Kansas andMontana, though it is quite possible that this vireo is a fairly regularmigrant through both States. In Kansas specimens were collectedSeptember 2 and 24, 1922, in Doniphan County ; and in Montana onewas collected on June 3, 1910, near Johnson Lake, Sheridan County.Egg dates.?Maine : 4 records, June 15 to July 15.Manitoba : 3 records, June 9 to 14.New Brunswick : 8 records, June 15 to 24.Quebec : 2 records, June 18 and 26.VIKEO GILVUS GILVUS (VieiUot)EASTERN WARBLING VIREOHABITSContributed bt Winsor Marbett TylerThe warbling vireo, if it were not for its song, would not be anotable species, for it is a little bird in leaf-green plumage, inconspicu-ous as it moves about among the foliage on the highest branches ofits favorite elms and poplars where it spends the summer days, sur-rounded by green leaves and almost hidden by them. EASTERN WARBLING VIREO 363High up in the trees, one of its nearest neighbors is the wood pewee,another leafy-green little bird. But unlike the pewee that sitsmotionless on its perch, flying out from it now and then into the airto catch its prey, the vireo rambles about among the leafy branchlets,finding its food there.Spring.?Wlien the warbling vireos arrive in New England earlyin May, we of their human friends hope that a pair will settle in theroadside trees near our homes, for if they do, although we may rarelysee them, we know that the male will entertain us with his delightfulsong, filling the days with charming, simple melody all through thesummer, even on the hottest days of July and August.The song, as it goes on hour after hour, suggests a spirit of quiethappiness, a contrast to the flaunting, martial bugling of the Balti-more oriole, another of the vireos' neighbors, and to the slow, sweetnotes of the wood pewee with their hint of pathos. In the vireo'ssong there is an air of unhurried calm, a leisureliness we seldom hearin the voice of a bird. Spring brings us greater artists, more pro-ficient technicians, birds of more exuberant joyousness, but no suchcomfortable and welcome "guest of summer" as the warbling vireo.Courtship.?^We know little in detail of the nesting activities of thewarbling vireo, for the bird stays so high above the ground at thisseason that we rarely see him at short range. Audubon (1842), how-ever, by a fortunate chance, was able to watch the building of a nestunder favorable circumstances, and noted a bit of courtship behaviorof which he remarks: "During the love days of the pair mentionedabove [see below under nesting] , the male would spread its little wingsand tail, and strut in short circles round the female, pouring out a lowwarble so sweet and mellow that I can compare it only to the soundsof a good musical box. The female received these attentions withoutcoyness, and I have often thought that these birds had been attachedto each other before that season." Audubon also mentions the odd,swaying motion which is characteristic of the red-eyed vireo (q. v.)both in the season of courtship and after the young are fledged. Hesays: "I observed that they now and then stood in a stiffened attitude,balancing their body from side to side on the joint of the tarsus andtoes, as on a hinge, but could not discover the import of this singu-lar action."Nesting.?Dr. Thomas M. Brewer (Baird, Brewer, and Eidgway,1874) , speaking of the nests, says : The Warbling Vireo biiikls its nest usually in more elevated positions thanany others of this family. For the most part in the vicinity of dwellings, oftenover frequented streets, they suspend their elaborately woven and beautifullittle basket-like nest, secure from intrusion from their human neighbors, andprotected by the near presence of man from all their more dreadedenemies. * * * 364 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMThe nests of the Warbling Vireo, while they resemble closely those of the otherspecies in all the characteristics of this well-marked family, are yet, as a rule,more carefully, neatly, and closely built. They are usually suspended at theheight of from thirty to fifty feet, in the fork of twigs, under and near the ex-tremity of the tree-top, often an elm, protected from the sun and storm by a canopyof leaves, and just out of reach of most enemies. They vary little in size, beingabout two inches in height and three and a half in their greatest diameter, nar-rowing, toward their junction with the twigs, to two inches. They are all securedIn a very firm manner to the twigs from which they are suspended by a fplting ofvarious materials, chiefly soft, flexible, flax-like strips of vegetable fibres, leaves,stems of plants, and strips of bark. With these are interwoven, and carried outaround the outer portions of the nest, long strips of soft flexible bark ofdeciduous trees. They are softly and compactly filled in and lined with finestems of plants.William Brewster (1906) writes: "The nest of the Warbling Vireois ordinarily built at least thirty or forty feet above the ground, at theend of a long, slender branch. Silver-leaved poplars are preferredto all other trees, but where these are not available the birds contentthemselves with large, spreading white ash trees, or with elms, lindensor maples, while they occasionally choose apple or even pear trees."A. C. Bent (MS.) writes of a nest which he collected "25 feet fromthe ground in the top of a pear tree, attached to some small, leafytwigs close to an outer, topmost branch. The nest was deeply hollowedand well made of strips of inner bark of shrubs, various soft fibers,leaves, feathers, spiders' nests and cobwebs; it was lined with finegrasses and horse hair." And Coues (1878) points out that "thenest is quite deeply cupped, with a somewhat contracted brim, forthe still greater safety of its precious freight."M. G. Vaiden (MS.), of Rosedale, Miss., sends to Mr. Bent thefollowing data on nests of the warbling vireo : "A nest 60 feet fromthe ground, out on a limb, in a crotch of a small limb branching froma larger one. However, the nest was only 14 feet from the trunkof the tree. The nest was very similar to that of the red-eye vireo,but a little heavier material had been used, and there was less work-manship on the outer side, not so much inner bark strips or moss,although there was a dab here and there." Another nest: "At thevery top outer branches of a pecan, 90 feet high." A third nest : "Inyoung sycamore tree, out on limb and semipensile, not over 15 feetfrom the ground on a branch over a little-used dirt road. This wasthe tallest tree (20 feet) in the vicinity." And A. Dawes Du Bois(MS.) sends the following: "About 40 feet from the ground in topof willow tree on bank of river ; about 40 feet up in red oak tree 30yards from our house; IOY2 f^et from the ground in apple tree inorchard." Of the second nest he says: "While I was watching thesinging bird on the nest, his mate came and replaced him. Thechange was made as quick as a flash; as he slipped off the nest, hismate slipped instantly into it. A rather stiff wind was blowing, so that EASTERN WARBLING VIREO 365the eggs would not have been safe for half a second if left uncovered.However, I found later that, even when there was no wind, the birdschanged places rather quickly."Audubon (1842) gives an account of the building of a nest in aLombardy poplar which almost touched his window. He says : Never before had I seen it placed so low, and never before had I an oppor-tunity of examining it, or of observing the particular habits of the species withso much advantage. The nest, although formed nearly in the same manner asseveral others, which I have since obtained by cutting them down with rifleballs, from the top twigs of the tall trees to which they were attached, insteadof being fastened in the fork of a twig, was fixed to the body of the tree, andthat of a branch coming off at a very acute angle. The birds were engaged inconstructing it during eight days, working chiefly in the morning and evening.* * * One morning I observed both of them at work ; they had already attachedsome slender blades of grass to the knots on the branch and the bark of the trunk,and had given them a circular disposition. They continued working downwardsand outwards, until the structure exhibited the form of their delicate tenement.Before the end of the second day, bits of hornets' nests and particles of corn-husks had been attached to it by pushing them between the rows of grass, andfixing them with silky substances. On the third day, the birds were absent, nercould I hear them anywhere in the neighborhood, and thinking that a cat miglithave caught them from the edge of the roof, I despaired of seeing them again.On the fourth morning, however, their notes attracted my attention before Irose, and I had the pleasure of finding them at their labours. The materials whichthey now used consisted chiefly of extremely slender grasses, which the birdsworked in a circular form within the frame which they had previously made.The little creatures were absent nearly an hour at a time, and returned togetherbringing the grass, which I concluded they found at a considerable distance.Going into the street to see in what direction they went, I watched them forsome time, and followed them as they flew from tree to tree toward the river.There they stopped, and looked as if carefully watching me, on which I i-etiredto a small distance, when they resumed their journey, and led me quite out ofthe village, to a large meadow, where stood an old hay-stack. They alightedon it, and in a few minutes each had selected a blade of grass. Keturning bythe same route, they moved so slowly from one tree to another, that my patiencewas severely tried. Two other days were consumed in travelling for the samekind of grass. On the seventh I saw only the female at work, using wool andhorse-hair. The eighth was almost entirely spent by both in smoothing the in-side. They would enter the nest, sit in it, turn round, and press the lining, Ishould suppose a hundred times or more in the course of an hour. * * *In the course of five days, an equal number of eggs was laid.Eggs.?[Author's note: The warbling vireo lays three to fiveeggs to a set, usually four. These are practically ovate and withoutany appreciable gloss. They are pure white, with only a few scat-tered spots of various shades of reddish or darker browns, or blackish,the darker spots being commonest. The measurements of 50 eggsaverage 19.1 by 14.2 millimeters; the eggs showing the four extremesmeasure 20.3 by 14.7, 18.7 by 15.1, 17.8 by 13.6, 18.8 by 13.2 millimeters.]Young.?We meet the young warbling vireos at close range whenthey come down from their lofty nest and follow their parents about 366 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMin the shrubbery. They are odd, pale little birds when we first seethem in July, not long from the nest?light brown on the back, witha wash of yellow on the breast and flanks, and hoary about the head,almost white, although they soon lose this latter mark. A. DawesDu Bois (MS.) remarks: "The plumage of the fledglings is so palethat they look like little white birds." The old birds feed them withlarvae (often a long, green worm), large moths (after pulling off thewings), and later, when the shrubs have fruited, with cornelberries.The young birds at this time, as well as the adults, give a curiousnote which attracts our attention to these family gatherings. Itstrongly suggests the distant clipping of garden shears?a sort ofsneeze.Audubon (1842) gives the incubation period as 12 days, and saysof the young birds : "On the sixteenth day after their exclusion fromthe egg, they took to wing, and ascended the branches of the tree,with surprising ease and firmness."Plumages.?[Author's note: Dr. Dwight (1900) calls the nataldown "pale wood-brown" and describes the juvenal plumage as "abovewood-brown, very pale on pileum and nape, darker and faintly tingedwith olive on the back. * * * Below, white, the crissum tingedwith pale primrose-yellow. Auriculars, orbital ring and superciliaryline white."There is a partial postjuvenal molt, beginning early in August,which involves the contour plumage, and the wing coverts, but notthe rest of the wings nor the tail. This produces a first winter plum-age which is practically indistinguishable from the winter plumageof the adult, greener above and more buffy white below than the previ-ous plumage.Dr. Dwight says that the nuptial plumage is acquired by wear, butNed Dearborn (1907) found March and April specimens of the west-ern race undergoing a scattered molt on the head and breast. Thismay also be true of other vireos, though we have not the proper speci-mens to show it.]Food.?In his study of food habits of the vireos, Dr. Edward A.Chapin (1925), summarizing his findings, says:The economic status of the warbling vireo is in some ways more distinctlyunfavorable than that of the other species of this family of birds, especiallyin its consumption of ladybirds. In more than a third of the stomachs exam-ined the remains of these beneficial beetles were found. * *On the other hand, the injurious insects taken by the warbling vireo makeup the greater part of the food. Lepidopterous remains, including adult mothsand butterflies, caterpillars, pupae, and eggs, were taken from about 77 percent of those examined. This alone should atone for the bird's injurious pro-clivities along other lines. * * * Little if any of the vegetable food takenwas obviously cultivated, in most cases being from plants not used for theirfruits. It seems reasonable, then, to class the bird as neither beneficial norinjurious. EASTERN WARBLING VIREO 367Elliott Coues (1878) adds an interesting food item. He says in afootnote: "Prof. Samuel Aughey gives the Warbling Vireo amongthe birds of Nebraska which destroy the scourge of that country ? the grasshopper," quoting him as follows : " 'I frequently saw it lightdown within a rod of me where locusts abounded and feed on them.This species seemed to eat them in all stages of their growth, andbrought them constantly to their nests for their young.' " Tilford Moore writes to Mr. Bent that he has several times seenone hang upside down from a twig to get food out of an apple blossom.Behavior.?William Brewster (1906), writing of the bird in east-ern Massachusetts, says : "The warbling vireo is a bird of somewhatpeculiar and restricted distribution. It shuns extensive tracts of wood-land and, indeed, most wild and primitive places, although it nestssparingly in orchard or shade trees near secluded farmhouses, andrather frequently along country roads bordered by rows of large elmsor maples. We find it most commonly and regularly, however, in ornear village centers such as those of Lexington, Arlington, Behnont andWatertown."Mr. Brewster is referring here to the early years of this century. Iremember that in those days I used to hear warbling vireos about halfa mile apart along the main street through Lexington, but before manyyears, about 1912, we noted a diminution in their numbers ; every yearfewer and fewer breeding pairs returned, until, early in the 20's, thespecies became practically unknown in the town, and was rare through-out eastern INIassachusetts. However, since about 1938, there has beena decided increase in its numbers.The warbling vireo is so partial to the lines of trees along our villagestreets and to isolated trees in open country that, thinking back to thetime when this land was covered chiefly by unbroken forest, we wonderwhere the bird could have found in those days a habitat to its liking.It is thought that the well-watered trees on the border of the broadlanes opened by rivers through the forest were the former habitat ofthe bird, for these would afford a situation not unlike the vireos'present breeding ground. Aretas A. Saunders (1942) expresses thisconjecture : "I believe that the warbling vireo originally inhabited treesalong stream borders. With the coming of civilization, shade treesalong city streets formed a rather similar habitat, and it adopted suchplaces. This will explain its preference for elms and silver maples,trees that originally were found along stream borders."Li former times, apparently, tlie warbling vireo was a resident inlarge cities. Dr. Brewer (Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway, 1874) says: "It is especially abundant among the elms on Boston Common, whereat almost any hour of the day, from early in the month of May untillong after summer has gone, may be heard the prolonged notes of this,one of the sweetest and most constant of our singers." Henry D. Minot 368 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM(1895), speaking of the 1870's, also mentions the birds' occurrence"among the ehns of Boston Common."Many observers have noted the warbling vireo's habit of singingwhile he is incubating. William Brewster (1937) speaks of it thus: "Soon after leaving the Yellow-throat's nest, I heard our WarblingVireo singing in the orchard. Thinking that he might be on the nest,I followed up the sound and directly saw the nest in the very top ofa rather tall tree attached to the horizontal twigs of a long, wprightleafy branch. I could see the bird's head distinctly. He raised it highwhen he sang and his white throat swelled and flashed in the sunlight."Francis H. Allen (MS.) describes an unusual observation: "I oncesaw a pair perched in bushes and low trees on a river bank and flyingfrequently down to the surface of the stream, striking it forcibly, andthen returning to their perches, where they preened their feathers.Both birds participated, but not simultaneously. Wliether the purposewas for bathing or to take insects from the surface of the water Icould not make out, but, intentionally or not, they got their baths. Inall cases it was a straight dash to the water at an angle of perhaps 25or 30 degrees."Voice.?Wherever we turn in the literature of the warbling vireo wefind that the author, after commenting on the bird's inconspicuous-ness, speaks enthusiastically of its song, pointing out the differencefrom the songs of the other vireos, the length of the song period, andthe charm of the smoothly flowing warble.The song of the warbling vireo is not broken up into short, exclama-tory phrases like those of the other common New England vireos, thered-eyed, the solitary, and the yellow-throated, but continues on in along series of slow, quietly delivered musical notes increasing inforce to the end. The pitch undulates gently to the final note, whichis generally the highest and \X\^ most strongly accented. Somewriters find a resemblance in the song to that of the purple finch,but the finch's notes are very rapid and energetic and have none of thecalm deliberateness of the vireo's melody. The most suggestiverendering of the vireo's song, perhaps, is Wilson Flagg's (1890) : "Brig-a-dier, Brig-a-dier, Brigate," which, pronounced slowly, bringsout the rhythm admirably.Aretas A. Saunders (MS.) sends to Mr. Bent this summary ofthe song: "The song of the warbling vireo consists of a series ofconnected notes, with no two consecutive notes on the same pitch,and is therefore a true warble. Individuals often sing several differ-ent songs, and in a number of cases I have recorded from three toseven different songs from one individual. The pitch varies fromD ' ' ' ' to C # ' ' ', half a tone more than an octave. The average songranges about 314 tones in pitch. Songs consist of 7 to 25 notes eachand vary in length from 1 to 3 seconds. The notes are not all the EASTERN WARBLING VIREO 369same length. A common form is made up of one long note followedby two short ones, and wlien this is repeated several times it is likedactylic feet in poetry. It is common for the song to end on a highnote."In the summer of 1912 a bird that was breeding on LexingtonCommon, within hearing from my windows, showed a marked depar-ture from the norm.al song. My notes say : "He often utters a partof his song in a squeaky voice with no whistled quality whatever, thetone becoming so high that it contains a sibilant sound. Sometimeshe changes to the squeak in the middle of the song, returning to thewhistle before the end ; sometimes he ends with the squeak," Strangeto say, later in the same year I heard a similar song from anotherwarbling vireo breeding 5 miles from Lexington. This variation,however, must be rare, for I have not heard it since, although I haveheard the red-eyed vireo sing in this manner.The bird often sings until well into September: Mr. Bent hasheard it singing daily from August 31 to September 13, inclusive,and my records for 10 years average August 27, the latest beingSeptember 18, 1910.The warbling vireo has two common minor notes; one the soundthat resembles the sharp clipping of garden shears, mentioned under "Young," and a complaint note, corresponding, apparently, to thequee of the redeye, but with no downward inflection. It is a hard,tense snarl, with sometimes a slight upward inflection, easily recog-nized as a diagnostic note of the species.Dr. Jonathan Dwight, Jr. (1897) , makes an interesting comment onthis latter note. Speaking of a similar note of the Philadelphia vireo,he says : "It does not resemble the corresponding complaint note ofolwaceus, but is almost exactly like the aggressive myci of gilvus, whichhas a suggestion of the katydid about it."Til ford Moore says in his notes: "Today I saw one singing inflight; he finished his song just after alighting but sang three-quartersof it in flight."Field marks.?The warbling vireo has no mark in its plumage thatenables us to identify it at a glance as a species. It has no wing bars,no eye ring, no distinctive lines on the head, like some of the othervireos : it is merely a gray-green little bird, but, from the shape of itsbill and its manner in moving about, clearly a vireo. So we have tocome to an identification by elimination, by the process of reductioad absurdum.Yet, before long, when we have seen the bird time and time again,it begins to take on an individuality of its own, as all birds do whenwe learn to know them well, and we recognize it, not, as we recognizemany birds, by some peculiarity of plumage, not even because it lacksany distinctive marks, but because it suggests the definite personality 370 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMwe have attributed to the warbling vireo. The side of the head,marked only by a slight paleness above the eye, has an expression ofbland innocence; the delicate coloring of the plumage, with no spotof ornament to set it off, gives an air of quiet refinement, like thebird's song; and the diminutive bill gives the bird a youthfulappearance.Enemies.?Herbert Friedmann (1929) says of the relation of thecowbird to tlie warbling vireo: "A very common victim. * * *Eaton lists the Warbling Vireo as one of the commonest molothrinevictims in New York State, and I have numerous records from otherparts of the country. * * * All together over forty records havecome to my notice. In common with the other species of its family,this Vireo normally makes no attempt to rid herself of the parasiticeggs." In recent year the warbling vireo has probably suffered morefrom the spraying of the shade trees with poison than from the naturalenemies that commonly beset small arboreal birds. Their nests havebeen imperiled by the high-pressure spraying that rocks the elmbranches at the vital points of the birds' summer distribution, the road-side trees of our country towns.Whiter.?Dowfildi K. Dickey and A. J. van Rossem (1938) speakof the bird on its winter quarters : The winter home of the eastern warbling vireo can now be stated to be inthe foothills of El Salvador and adjacent parts of Central America. * ? *On Mt. Cacajniatique in late November and in December, 1925, warbling vireoswere abundant at 2,500 feet elevation, all through the berry-bearing trees whichprovided shade for the coffee groves. From there up to the oak- and pine-coveredsummit of the mountain (about 4,000 feet) they were also very numerous.In February and March, 1926, both on Volcfln de Conchagua and Volcfin de SanMiguel numbers were observed in similar environments at from 2,500 to 3,500feet, but mucli less commonly than in the interior. At Clulata in April, 1927,warbling vireos were migrating and were usually in pairs.Ludlow Griscom (1932) writes: "It is apparently quite commonand generally distributed in Guatemala in winter, arriving principallyin October, the earliest date being September 28, 1926."DISTKIBUTIONRange.?Canada to El Salvador.Breeding range.?The warbling vireo breeds north to northernBritish Columbia (Atlin, Fort Halkett, and Fort Nelson) ; south-western Ma(;kenzie (Wrigley, Simpson, Providence, and Resolution) ;northeastern Alberta (Chippewyan and McMurray) ; central Sas-katchewan (Wingard and Prince Albert) ; southern Manitoba (DuckMountain, Lake St. Martin, and Selkirk ; probably to Norway House) ; southern Ontario (Port Arthur, Lake Nipissing, and Ottawa) ;southern Quebec (Montreal and Quebec) ; southern New Brunswick EASTERN WARBLING VIREO 371(Fredericton) ; Prince Edward Island (Brackley Point) ; and NovaScotia (Pictou). East to central Nova Scotia (Pictou, Truro, andHalifax) ; the Atlantic coast of the United States to southern Virginia(Dismal Swamp) ; through the mountains to northern Alabama(Anniston and Florence). South to northern Alabama (Anniston) ; western Mississippi (Shell Mound and Rodney) ; southern Louisiana(New Orleans, Houma, and Calcasieu) ; sparingly in southern TexasHuntsville, Rockport, Marathon, and the Guadalupe Mountains) ;southern New Mexico (Cloudcroft, Silver City, and the AnimasMountains) ; southwestern Chihuahua (Bravo and Mina Abundan-cia) ; central Sonora (Rancho Santa Barbara and Magdalena) ; andsouthern California (Santa Ysabel and Escondido) ; also resident inthe Cape region of Lower California. West to the Pacific coast ofCalifornia (Escondido, Santa Barbara, San Francisco, and Eureka)Oregon (Grants Pass, Eugene, Tillamook, and Astoria) ; Washing-ton (La Push, Cape Flattery, and Bellingham) ; and British Columbia(Victoria, Cape Scott, Kimsquit, Great Glacier, Telegraph Creek,and Atlin).Winte7' range.?Li winter the warbling vireo is found from southernVeracruz (Orizaba) through southern Oaxaca (Tehuantepec) ; south-central Chiapas (Comitan) ; western Guatemala (Finca Carolina,Sacapula, Patulul, and Progreso) ; to El Salvador (Colimas andMount Cacaguatique).The above range includes all the subspecies of the warbling vireobreeding within the Check-list range of which four are recognized.The typical race, the eastern warbling vireo (F. g. gilvus), breedswest to eastern Saskatchewan and the eastern edge of the Great Plainsand northern Texas. The Oregon warbling vireo {V. g. leucopolius)breeds from northern British Columbia (except the coastal area) andsouthwestern Mackenzie south to northern Nevada and Montana. Thewestern warbling vireo (V. g. sioainsoni) breeds in the coastal regionof British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon, through southernNevada, to southern Wyoming and Colorado, and south to southernCalifornia and western Texas. The Cape warbling vireo (F. g.victoriae) breeds in the Cape district of Lower California, xlddi-tional races occur in Mexico.^Migration.?Late dates of spring departure from the winter homeare: El Salvador?Chilata, April 27. Guatemala?Patulul, April 2.Veracruz?Presidio, May 4.Early dates of spring arrival are: Alabama?Syllacauga, April16. Georgia?Macon, April 16. North Carolina?Asheville, April13. District of Columbia?Washington, April 21. Pennsylvania ? 2 The subspecies Icticopolius and victoriae were officially recognized by the A. O. U. Coui-mitee after the manuscript of this bulletin was submitted ; hence no separate accounts ofthem are here included. ? Editob. 372 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMPittsburgh, April 24. New York?New York, April 28. Massachu-setts?^Marlboro, April 27. New Hampshire?East Jaffrey, April 27.Maine?Augusta, May 1. Quebec?Montreal, May 16. Louisiana ? Chenier au Tigre, March 4. Arkansas?Rogers, April 1. ]\IissouriSt. Louis, April 6. Kentucky?Guthrie, April 5. Lidiana?Bloom-ington, April 21. Michigan?^Ann Arbor, April 21. Ohio?Colum-bus, April 19. Ontario?London, April 29. Iowa?Keokuk, April24. Wisconsin?New London, April 28. Minnesota?Red Wing, May2. Manitoba?Aweme, May 15. Texas?Palmetto Park, March 31.Oklahoma?Oklahoma City, April 16. Kansas?Manhattan, April 18.South Dakota?Yankton, April 25. North Dakota?Fargo, May 11.Saskatchewan?Indian Head, May 12. Colorado?Colorado Springs,May 1. Wyoming?Careyhurst, May 10. Montana?Corvallis, May6. Alberta?Glenevis, May 1. Mackenzie?Simpson, May 22. Ari-zona?Yuma, March 12. Utah?Provo, May 11. Idaho?Coeurd'Alene, May 3. California?Los Angeles, March 11. OregonEugene, April 12. Washington?Prescott, April 26. British Colum-bia?Hastings, April 26; Atlin, May 18.Late dates of fall departure are: British Columbia?Atlin, Aug-ust 17; Courtenay, September 17. Washington?Yakima, Septem-ber 19. Oregon?Coos Bay, September 20. California?Ikrkeley,October 3. Alberta?Glenevis, August 20. Montana?Fortine, Sep-tember 9. Wyoming?Yellowstone Park, September 29. ColoradoFort Morgan, September 18. Saskatchewan?Indian Head, Septem-ber 23. North Dakota?x4-rgusville, September 21. South DakotaYankton, September 30. Nebraska?Red Cloud, October 1. Okla-homa?Kenton, September 22. Texas?Brownsville, October 2.Manitoba?Aweme, September 19. Minnesota?St. Paul, September26. Wisconsin?Racine, October 7. Missouri?St. Louis, September27. Illinois?Chicago, September 27. Ontario?Ottawa, Septem-ber 22. Ohio?Toledo, October 11. Tennessee?Knoxville, Octo-ber 10. Arkansas?Helena, October 5. Maine?Dover-Foxcroft,October 5. Vermont?St. Johnsbury, September 29. Massachu-setts?Taunton, October 1. New York?Schenectady, October 1.Pennsylvania?McKeesport, October 7. District of ColumbiaWashington, September 12. Georgia?Augusta, October 15.At a banding station at Northville, S. Dak., 41 warbling vireos werebanded over a period of 4 years and four individuals were retrappedin subsequent years : Banded ReturnedJune 11, 1932 August 4, 1933May 30, 1932 June 12, 1934May 17, 1933 May 20, 1934August 20, 1933 May 21, 1934Egg dates.?California: 82 records, April 26 to July 25; 41 records,May 24 to June 14, indicating the height of the season. WESTERN WARBLING VIREO 373Massachusetts : 11 records, May 20 to June 25 ; 7 records, May 26to June 8.New York : 33 records, May 20 to June 25 ; 23 records. May 25 toJune 6.Washington : 15 records, May 22 to June 29, 10 records, June 15 to22. VIREO GILVUS SWAINSONI BairdWESTERN WARBLING VIREOHABITSThe western warbling vireo differs from the eastern race by beingsmaller, with a relatively smaller bill ; "coloration darker, especiallythe pileum, which is perceptibly (often distinctly) darker than theback; the latter, together with the sides and flanks, usually morestrongly olivaceous," according to Ridgway (1904).It is a widely distributed and very common bird in all suitablelocalities in the Western States and southern Canada, from the GreatPlains to the Pacific slope. It seems to be equally common in thevalleys, in the wooded canyons, or in the mountains, up to 6,500 feetin northern Montana and up to 10,000 feet farther south. It liveswherever it can find deciduous trees and shrubbery, showing a decidedpreference for cottonwoods and aspens. In most places its hauntsare in the wilder, uninhabited regions, along the banks of streamsand on the edges of woodlands and clearings. But S. F. Rathbuntells me that near Seattle, Wash., it is also found "about the citiesand towns, building its nest in some shade tree along the street." Hesays that at Lake Crescent, Wash., it is "restricted to, or in the vicinityof, the deciduous growth near the lake, or along its shore. Whereverthere was a clearing in which might grow the western maple, herewould probably be found a pair of the vireos. In some of the wilderparts of the region, particularly the river valleys that are borderedwith a deciduous growth of alders and cottonwood, it will be foundvery common; and in such localities the flow of its song, mingled withthe murmur of the running stream, is most pleasing to hear."Russell K. Grater tells me that, in Zion National Park, Utah, it "isa very common summer resident in the broadleaf trees along the can-yon floor and up to elevations around 7,000 feet." Howard L. Cogswellwrites to me, from Los Angeles County : "In the breeding season here,the warbling vireo is chiefly a bird of the mountain canyons, or moredefinitely of the riparian growth (alders, cottonwoods, sycamores, andmaples) along the streams from the tree filled gulches in the foothillmesas barely into the lower edge of the pine belt." Dr. Jean M. Lins-dale (1938) says that, in the Toyabe Mountains, in Nevada ? 374 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMthe warbling vireo was one of the common species, widespread wherever therewere deciduous trees. It was of regular occurrence in the groves of aspens andcottonwoods. The favorite habitat was in trees 25 to 30 feet high wherethere was some undergrowth and leaf litter. But the birds kept closely withinthe crown foliage. This was the most numerous species in the birches and willowswhich lined the streams. It occurred also, but less commonly, over the ridgesin mountain mahoganies. Chokecherry thickets provided suitable homes, es-pecially when in fruit in the fall. Individuals were seen a few times in piJQons.* * * One was singing in bushes of Symphoricarpos on an east-facing ridgeat 8600 feet near Kingston Creek. The nearest trees were mountain mahogany,200 to 300 yards distant.Spring.?^The western warbling vireo evidently occurs mainly as amigrant, in Guatemala, for Ned Dearborn (1907) says : "One was takenand another seen at El Eanclio January 6th. No more were seen untilMarch 24th, when they were found at Patulul in abundance, and socontinued, at least, until April 2d. Seven were collected at Patulul.At this time, they were passing through the trees in loose flocks andwere evidently migrating. The March and April specimens wereundergoing a scattered moult, not a general renewal, on head andbreast."Mr. Cogswell says in his notes: "During the spring migration inApril and early in May, warbling vireos are quite common throughoutPasadena, Calif., especially sections with oaks and sycamores. Manymigrants sing constantly during their stay of a few hours or a day orso in one vicinity."Mr. Kathbun (MS.) says of the spring migration in western Wash-ington : "At first a few in company will be seen, these little birds seem-ing to pass on. Often a day or two elapses before any more are seen ; then once more a few pass by. This is followed by the appearance ofnumbers of the vireos, after which the species is common and will befound in its accustomed places. This movement seems to be coveredby a period of about 15 days."Nesting.?Mr. Rathbun tells me that he finds the nests of the west-ern warbling vireo in maples, alders, and other deciduous trees from4 to 40 feet above ground, "but, as a rule, one can expect to find them atsome considerable height." He gives me this good description of anest : "This nest was attached in the usual way to a fork of one of thebranches of a young alder tree, which grew at the edge of a clump of thesame kind of growth, the nest being suspended only six feet above theground. Its construction represented the ordinary cup-shaped nestmade by most vireos, and the materials used were similar except in onemarked respect; the outside of this nest was almost entirely of thedingy-gray, cottony substance from the black cottonwood tree, thismaterial held in place by means of long blades of green grass; andthere was also tied on the outer side a green alder leaf. Some of theblades of grass completely encircled the nest, aiding its attachment WESTERN WARBLING VIREO 375to the fork from which it hung, and, together with spider webs,were used to hold the cottony substance in phice. The nest was abeautiful object and harmonized so well with its natural surroundingsthat it would easily escape notice among the glimmering alder leaves.And so much cottony substance had been used on the outside of the nestthat in spots it was fully one-half inch in thickness. This nest wasneatly lined with very fine shreds of the outer bark from dry weedstalks; and filaments of spider webs were also utilized to bind theedge of the nest to the fork from which it hung."Dr. Linsdale (1938) reports four Nevada nests; one Avas 8 feet upin a chokecherry near the base of a rocky cliff at 8,000 feet altitude ina canyon ; and another, found the same day, was 15 feet above groundin an aspen in the same vicinity. Two others were 15 feet above groundin a birch clump and 9 feet up in an aspen, respectively. Frank C.Willard (1908) found a nest in Arizona that was 30 feet from theground in a sycamore in a canyon.Grinnell and Storer (1924) report two nests in the Yosemite Valley ; one was "4I/2 feet above the ground at the forking of two almost leaf-less branches of a coffee berry bush." The other Avas about 12 feetup and 3 feet out from the trunk of a young black oak. Dr. Grinnell(1908) found a nest 6 feet feet from the ground in an apple tree inthe San Bernardino Mountains, and several others in cottonwoods,from 6 to 20 feet above ground.The best account I can find of the nesting and home of the westernwarbling vireo is that published by Henry J. Eust (1920), of Coeurd'Alene, Idaho.His first nest "was suspended from the fork of a small spiraea bush,five feet from the ground, back about ten feet in dense shrubbery alongan old roadway"; this nest was torn down and destroyed when theyoung were about 8 days old. But he found another nest the followingyear along the same roadw^ay, and watched the birds building it andrearing their young successfully. He took a number of good photo-graphs of it (pis. 46, 47) . It was 4i/^ feet from the ground in a fork ofa small willow, and, when first found, "consisted of several blades ofdry grass woven over and under, back and forth across the crotch,the loose ends drooping, with several bits of willow down adhering."He continues : In the afternoon of the next day the rim was finished and rounded out in shapeto support the completed nest; some of the loose ends were woven in and out,with a few additional dry grass stems, bits of string and willow down, thisforming a part of the body of the nest. Two days later, the 27th, the nest wascompleted on the outside. When visited on the 30th the lining was in place,consisting of dry grass stems interwoven with ten or twelve strands of horsehair. The nest as completed measured as follows: Diameter outside, 2\^2 by 3inches ; length 3 inches ; diameter inside, 1% by 2 inches ; depth 1% inches.On dissecting the nest after the young had flown, the following materials were 376 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUJV noted, besides the dry grass blades and stems already mentioned : Three piecesof white string, 14, 15, and 241/^ inches in length, respectively; also a numberof small white threads of various lengths up to 6^2 inches; 35 detachable bitsof down from willow seeds, with many woven in securely; several bits of lichen(Alectoria fremontii) ; small strips of ninebark (Opulaster pmiciflorus) ; threesmall pieces of old discolored cotton ; and, in the rim, bits of matted cow hair.There being four houses less than one hundred yards from the nesting site,the string, horsehair and cotton were no doubt obtained on or near those premises.The balance of the material could have been secured a few feet from the nest.In weaving the long piece of string, one end must have dropped down, and inpicking up the loose end it had been passed under a small twig below the nest,forming a long hanging loop that remained in place during the occupancy ofthe nest, as shown in the photos.The bulk of the nest, if not the entire structure, was built by the female. Themale remained in nearby trees, singing at regular intervals, but he was notnoted helping at any time. As in the case of the former nest, several dayspassed after it was finished before any eggs were laid. The first egg in thesecond nest was noted on June 4. Visited late in the afternoon of the 7th, thenest contained four eggs, the complete set.The young willow in which the nest was placed was growing in a small openingabout thirty feet from the edge of the old road, and was surrounded by aprofusion of green shrubbery that was much to the liking of the vireos. Ononly two occasions did I note either of the parent birds more than forty yardsaway from tlie willow after the nest was completed, until the young bad flown.I could not help but note the pretty setting for such an interesting bit of homelife. The ground was carpeted with a thick growth of wild sweet pea (Lathyruspanciflonis) which was in full bloom and scenting the air with a sweet odor.One side of the opening was enclosed with buckbrush {Ceanothus sanguineus)and ninebark in bloom ; beyond there were several large yellow pines and Douglasfir trees ; on the other side were service berry bushes, willows, and ocean spray{Schizonoiiis discolor) which extended to a large grove of pine and fir trees inthe near distance. In and out through the surroundings were bushes of thelarge flowering wild rose in full bloom, adding a touch of color to the masses ofgreen and white.It will be observed from the above records tliat the western warblingvireo differs decidedly, in its choice of a nesting site, from its easternrelative. The eastern bird builds its nest almost invariably in treesand at a very considerable height, whereas the western bird oftenbuilds in bushes or low trees and much nearer the ground. Most ofthe recorded nests of the western warbling vireo have been placed atnot over 12 feet from the ground : and its highest nests, which seem tobe exceptional, have been below the average for the eastern bird.Eggs.?The western warbling vireo lays from three to five eggs,usually four. These are quite indistinguishable from those of theeastern race. The measurements of 40 eggs in the United States Na-tional Museum average 18.4 by 13.2 millimeters ; the eggs showing thefour extremes measure 20.3 by 14.7, 20.1 by 15.0, and 16.8 by 12.2millimeters.Young.?Mr. Rust (1920) found that the period of incubation was12 days, performed by both sexes. "If my visit happened in the morn-ing, and the male was incubating, I could almost touch the nest before WESTERN WARBLESTG VIREO 377he would leave. Then, alighting on a small dead fir tree nine feetfrom the nest, he \YOuld burst into song." He sang at intervals onthe nest. "If the female was incubating she quickly became aware ofmy presence, and at a distance of about five feet, would flit from thenest to a nearby bush, to begin the usual vireo scold." Both parentsassisted in feeding the young and in cleaning the nest, which was keptscrupulously clean. The male was very bold in feeding the young, sothat Mr. Rust was able to take some photographs of him in the act. "I was able to observe only the male parent feeding at close range,and I was surprised to note the care he took to feed the helpless youngbefore they were strong enough to raise their heads for food." Afterthe young "were several days old the male would sing from the treeas before, then fly direct to the nest and perching on the brim, wouldsing as if he would burst his throat." "On one occasion," he says, "a male Cassin Purple Finch seemed to share his joy, and, alightingon the singing tree, joined in and sang his best. The same incidentoccurred again when the young were a week old, but this time themale vireo seemed to resent the intrusion and drove the finch awayin a hurry, chasing him some distance. * * * In securing food forthe young the female gathered much larger insects than the male,often coming in with a good size caterpillar dangling from her bill.Wlien I was near she would fly back and forth six or eight feet fromthe nest and scold until the food was either lost or she ate it, I nevercould tell which. She never fed the young while I was near."Wlien first hatched the "four naked, dark, yellow-colored young"were all "huddled up in a pile in a corner of the nest." The younggained rapidly in size and strength, but one was found dead in thenest, when five days old. In removing the dead bird, Mr. Rust foundthat its claws were closed tightly over several strands of horsehairin the lining ; this clutching habit seems to be characteristic of youngvireos, and might prove very useful in a gale of wind.At the age of nine days the two stronger young had their eyes open,but one weakling was several days longer in acquiring its eyesight. "At the age of twelve days the young were well feathered and able toperch on the edge of the nest with a little assistance on my part. Theparents became very much excited when they saw two of the nestlingsout on the edge of the nest and uttered similar chirping notes tryingto coax them away. On the fifth day of July they had their picturestaken for the last time ; on the sixth the nest was deserted. Two dayslater I found the parent birds in some dense brush about seventy-fiveyards from the nest, but could not locate any of the young. Aftera severe scolding from the parents I retired and left them to their waysin peace."Plumages.?The plumages and their sequence are similar to thoseof the eastern warbling vireo, with the probability of a partial pre-843290?50 25 378 BULLETIN 197, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM nuptial molt about the head aud breast, as noted by Ned Dearborn(1907).Food.?Frof. F. E. L. Beal (1907) made a study of the westernwarbling vireo in California, based on the examination of 110 stom-achs, collected during the seven months from April to October, inclu-sive. He writes : Insects, with a few spiders, amount to over 97 percent of the diet, leaving lessthan 3 percent of vegetable matter, practically all of which was taken in Augustand September; it consisted of wild fruit (elderberries), a few seeds of poisonoak, a few other seeds, and some rubbish.Of the animal food the largest item is Lepidoptera ; that is, caterpillars, moths,and the like. These amount to something more than 43 percent of the whole.Caterpillars make up the great bulk of this portion of the food and are a veryconstant and regular article of diet. * * * In April they amount to over82 percent of the food of the month. Pupae of coddling moths were identifiedin four stomachs. * * *Hemiptera are the next most important item of diet, and amount to 21 percent.They consist of stink-bugs, leaf-bugs, leaf-hoppers, spittle-insects, tree-hoppers,and scales. The last were the black olive species (Saissetia oleae). Cocciuellidbeetles, or ladybirds, were eaten to the extent of over 19 percent of the whole. "' * * Other beetles, mostly harmful species, amount to more than 7 percent.Hymenoptera, consisting of a few ants and an occasional waspmade up a little more than 1 percent. "A small number of flies, grass-hoppers, and dragon-flies make up a little more than 3 percent of themiscellaneous insects. Spiders were eaten to somewhat less than 2percent."Mrs. Wlieelock (1904) says: "In the fall this bird becomes veryfriendly, coming into the orchards and gardens to hunt busily amongthe leaves for small caterpillars. At this time he is fond of the cornelberries that grow along the mountain brooks, and occasionally con-descends to eat mistletoe."Mr. Rathbun watched a western warbling for a long time while itwas busily feeding in some trees, and he says in his notes : "While hunt-ing among the branches and foliage of a tree the vireo sang frequently,and at times the song was given when the bird turned its head fromside to side. Often the vireo would poise in the air for an instant totake some insect from beneath a leaf, then begin again its inspectionof the twigs and leaves. The bird made this distinction in anything itcaptured; if the prey was small, it was eaten as soon as taken; but ifof large size, it was well minced before being swallowed."Voice.?All the habits, except as mentioned above, and the song ofthe western warbling vireo do not seem to differ from those of itseastern relative. It is an equally persistent singer. Mr. Rathbunsays in his notes: "Its warbling song is heard incessantly from thetime of its arrival until nearly the middle of June, then much lessfrequently. I have noticed that in the early part of the season thecharacter of the weather has no effect whatever on its tendency to sing, BAHAMA HONEYCREEPER 379but it does appear to influence the bird later, for then during the cooland lowery days its song is shorter and longer intervals elapse betweenthe renditions. And should a day come that is stormy, then the birdmay not be heard at all. During the flood period of its song the singeris seemingly carried away by his efforts, often singing continuouslyfor many seconds, renditions of his song flowing along like the cur-rent of a stream. Its song practically ceases by July, and in this monthis heard more often in the morning hours. It seems to cease singingsometime in early August, but we have heard it warble a little inSeptember during the time it is moving south."COEREBA BAHAMENSIS (Reichenbaeh)BAHAMA HONEYCREEPERHABITSThe Bahama honeycreeper is the only one of some 18 species ofhoneycreepers, or bananaquits, quite generally distributed in the WestIndies, the islands in the Caribbean Sea, and in Neotropical regions inSouth America, that has occurred within the limits of our Check-listand then only as a straggler on the east coast of Florida and in theFlorida keys. This species seems to breed only in the Bahama Islands.Apparently there are only two published records of its occurrence inFlorida; Baird (Baird, Cassin, and Lawrence, 1858), reported onetaken on Indian Key on January 31, 1858; and John T. Nichols (1921)reported one seen at Miami Beach on February 7, 1921.All visitors to the Bahamas have reported this honeycreeper asabundant on practically all the islands where there are trees or shrub-bery. C. J. Maynard (1896) , to whom we are mostly indebted for ourknowledge of the habits of this species, says : "The Honey Creeper isan abundant and widely distributed species throughout the Bahamas,being found on all of the larger islands which I have visited and theyalso occur on some of the smaller keys. * * * They inhabit thescrub, and in the neighborhood of settlements live on the borders ofthe plantations being attracted there by the fruit."Nesting.?Mv. Maynard found a number of nests during March,April, and May, which seems to cover the nesting season. He saysthat the nests are ? very large for the size of the birds, supported by forliing twigs in a bush, or smalltree, with the entrance on one side above the level of the bottom. Composedof the stems of a small vine, hemp-like fiber woven closely, forming eithera spherical or balloon-shaped structure. The lining is composed of finer material.Dimensions of nest, externally, 4.40 by 5.00; internal, 3.00 by 3.50; entrance,1.25 in diameter, * *As a rule, neither male nor female pays much attention to the intruder whenthe nest is visited. In most cases, I find that I have recorded that the femaleslipped quietly out of the nest and instantly disappeared. This was especially 380 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM noticeable when the eggs were fresh. The nest on the U Key was placed in a lowbush not over three feet from the ground ; both parents were present and neitherexhibited the slightest solicitude for the safety of their offspring. Both werevery tame, coming within a foot of our heads as we sat on the ground near thenest. This last mentioned was placed the lowest of any I ever saw and tlie oneI mentioned as finding in the scrub ten feet up was by far the highest. The usualdistance from the ground is between four and five feet. The nests are seldomfastened securely to the bushes, but are usually laid in the forks formed bythe twigs.There is one of Mr. Majmard's nests, containing three eggs, in theThayer collection in Cambridge. This had been placed in the slant-ing forks of a bush and built up fully 4 inches from the fork; it wasmade of rootlets, vine tendrils, strips of inner bark, and fine grasses,mixed with plenty of wool and pappus clusters; it was lined withfiner grass and pappus.There are three other nests of the Bahama honeycreeper in the samecollection, taken by A. H. Verrill during the first week in May 1904and 1905. One of these was in a bamboo thicket 3 feet from theground, one 4 feet up in a small bush, and one 6 feet above the earthin a tree. They are all bullcy nests, containing four, five, and six eggs,respectively, and made of smilar materials to those mentioned above,but one contains many dried and skeletonized leaves and dried lichens,the fine, brown flowing stalks of mosses had been used in one, and thethird contains the dried fronds of some fern. The largest nest meas-ures 7 by 5 inches in outer diameter.Eggs.?The Bahama honeycreeper lays three to six eggs in a set.These are ovate to elongate-ovate and are slightly glossy. The groundcolor is white, or grayish white, speckled and spotted with shades of "vinaceous-fawn," "Vandyke brown," and "snuff brown." Frequentlythe eggs are so speckled and clouded with "fawn," "brownish drab," "auburn," or "bay" that the ground color is practically obscured andappears to be "vinaceous-fawn." The markings on all types are moreconcentrated at the large end ; and on some of the heavily spotted andclouded varieties, a solid cap of "sorghum brown," with a few verytiny scrawls of "warm sepia," may be found. The measurements of40 eggs average 17.1 by 12.8 millimeters ; the eggs showing the four ex-tremes measure 19.0 by 13.1, 17.8 by 14.0, 15.5 by 12.4, and 17.1 by11.4 millimeters. (Harris.)Plumages.?Ridgway (1902) describes the juvenal plumage of theBahama honeycreeper as follows : "Above brownish gray or deep drab-gray, the primaries and rectrices marked with white and (togetherwith secondaries) edged with paler gray as in adults; lower rumpolive-yellow, much less distinct and more restricted than the pureyellow patch of adults ; sides of head brownish gray, without any whitesuperciliary stripe or else with this merely indicated; malar region BAHAMA HONEYCREEPER 381paler grayish or dull grayish white, faintly tinged with yellow ; chin,throat, and upper chest dull yellowish white; rest of under partssimilar, the lower chest, breast, and upper abdomen more distinctlyyellowish, the sides and flanks strongly tinged with brownish gray ; bill and feet as in adults, but the former rather more brownish."Food.?These honeycreepers are called bananaquits or bananabirdsby the natives of the islands, but Mr. Maynard (1896) says : "I do notremember having seen one eat any bananas. They are, however, veryfond of sapodillas and will eat them greedily. They also abstracthoney from the flowers of various plants and trees. "Wlien obtaininghoney from flowers, they alight on a convenient twig and insert theirbills into the calix, or when this is too deep, as in the case of thelong flower of the life leaf, they make an incision near the base,much as is done by bees under similar circumstances and thus removethe honey."They may also obtain some insects in the blossoms. J. H. Kiley(1905) saw them apparently hunting for insects in another way:"They seemed to be very industrious in searching the trees, presuma-bly for insects, crawling up and down like Mniotilta varia; indeed,their actions are very warbler-like."Behavior.?Mr. Maynard (1896) writes:Tlie flight of this species is swift and strong, quite unlike that of our warblers.They clash quickly through the foliage, alight suddenly, and remain perfectlymotionless for a time ; then when ready to move again they will fly, even fora short distance, rather than to hop from bough to bough. I have never seenany movement which would suggest creeping, thus it is diflScult to say why thename of creeper is applied to the species. They are not at all quarrelsome, andI have seen half a dozen cling together on one sapodilla feeding from an orificein one side. They are not shy and I have had them alight within a foot or twoof my head as I have been standing in the scrub, but they appear to vary in-dividually in this respect. Three, which were brought to me by some children,exhibited different degrees of tameness. One male, which sang the full song,was not at all shy, tasting sweetened water out of a spoon which I held in myhand. Another male was moderately tame, while a female was so shy that shewould not allow me to approach her, but flew about the room in which they wereall kept, whenever I attempted to offer her food.Dr. Glover M. Allen (1905) says: "Everywhere on the islands,among bushes and thickets, were little groups of these birds, old andyoung. They were exceedingly tame and eyed us curiously, oftenbut arm's length away."John T. Nichols (1921) observed one of these birds at Nassau "taking a morning bath, fluttering in the dew on the broad leavesof a low plant."Voice.?Mr. Maynard (1896) writes: "The song of the BahamaHoney Creeper consists of a series of low crackling notes, quite unlikethe sounds emitted by any other bird, excepting very closely allied 382 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM species. They also produce a chattering with the bill when disturbedand utter a sharp chirp of alarm."Dr. Allen (1905) says: "At New Providence in early July, weoccasionally heard the peculiar wirey song of the Honey Creeperwhich has somewhat the quality of Ruby-Crowned Kinglet's intri-cate melody with a peculiar faraway and ethereal softness."DISTRIBUTIONRange.?The Bahama Islands.Breeding range.?^The Bahama honeycreeper, or bananaquit, is res-ident in the Bahama Islands, occurring on all islands where there isany growth of bushes. It has occurred a few times in Florida,probably blown west by storms. Two specimens have been collected : at Indian Key on January 31, 1858, and at Fort Capron on February11, 1874. In addition there are three sight records: at Miami onFebruary 7, 1921, and March 23, 1949; and near Cape Sable inMay 1922. LITERATURE CITEDAlexandkr, Horace Gundrt.1927. A list of the birds observed in Latium, Italy, between June 1911and February 1916. Compiled from the notes and letters of thelate C. J. Alexander. Ibis, 1927, pp. (359-691.Allen, Arthur Augustus.1930. Cherry bird?the cedar waxwing. Bird-Lore, vol. 32, pp. 298-307.1932. The red-eyed vireo's family story. Bird-Lore, vol. 34, pp. 353-361.Allen, Francis Henry.1922. Some little-known songs of common birds. Natural History, vol.22, pp. 235-242.Allen, Glovek Morrill.1905. Summer birds in the Bahamas. Auk, vol. 22, pp. 113-133, pi. 1.Allen, Joel Asaph.1874. Notes on the natural history of portions of Dakota and MontanaTerritories, being the substance of a report to the Secretary ofWar on the collections made by the North Pacific Railroad Expedi-tion of 1873, Gen. D. S. Stanley, Commander. Proc. Boston Soc.Nat. Hist., vol. 17, pp. 33-85.1905. Report on the birds collected in north-eastern Siberia by the .JesupNorth Pacific Expedition, with field notes by the collectors. Bull.Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., vol. 21, pp. 219-257.American Ornithologists' Union.1931. Check-list of North American birds. Ed. 4.Audubon, John James.1841. The birds of America, vol. 3.1842. The birds of America, vol. 4.1S44. The birds of America, vol. 7.Aymar, Gordon.1935. Bird flight.Bagg, Aaron Clark, and Eliot, Samuel Atkins, Jr.1937. Birds of the Connecticut Valley in Massachusetts.Bailey, Alfred Marshall.1026. Report on the birds of northwestern Alaska and the regions adjacentto Bering Strait, pt. 10. Condor, vol. 28, pp. 165-170.Bailey, Florence Merkiam.1896. Nesting habits of Phainopepla nltens in California. Auk, vol. 13,pp. 38-43.1904. Scott oriole, gray vireo, and phoebe in northeastern New Mexico.Auk, vol. 21, pp. 392-393.1928. Birds of New Mexico.Bailey, Harold Harris.1925. The birds of Florida.Bairo, Spencer Fullerton.1865. Review of American birds, in the museum of the Smithsonian Insti-tution. Part 1, North and Middle America. Smithsonian Misc.Coll., No. 181.Baird, S. F. ; Brewer, Thomas Mayo; and Ridgway, Robert.1874. A history of North American birds, vol. 1. Land birds. 383 384 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMBAiBD, S. F. ; Cassin, John; and Lawbencje, George Newboij).1858. Reports of explorations and surveys . . . for a railroad from theMississippi River to the Pacific Ocean. . . , vol. 9, Birds.Banceoft, Gbiffing.1930. The breeding birds of central Lower California. Condor, vol. 32,pp. 20-49.Bangs, Outbam, and Bbadlee, Thomas Steat.nson.1901. The resident land birds of Bermuda. Auk, vol. 18, pp. 249-257.Baynard, Oscab Edwabd.1914. Photographing birds' nests. Bird-Lore, vol. 16, pp. 471-477.Baynes, Eenest Haeold.1922. A vireo as hostess. Bird-Lore, vol. 24, pp. 256-259.Beal, Foster Ellenboeough Lascelles.1907. Birds of California in relation to the fruit industry. Biol. Surv.Bui. 30.Beal, F. E. L., and McAtee, Waldo Lee.1912. Food of some well-known birds of forest, farm, and garden. U. S.Dept. Agr. Farmers' Bull. 506.Belding, Lyman.1883. Catalogue of a collection of birds made near the southern extremityof Lower California. Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., vol. 5, pp. 532-550.Benson, Mary B.1920. The waxwings' rag bag. Bird-Lore, vol. 22, pp. 286-287.Bergman, Sten.1935. Zur Kenntnis nordostasiastlscher VogeLBeetram, G. C. L. ; Lack, David ; and Roberts, Bnari Birley.1934. Notes on east Greenland birds, with a discussion of the periodicnon-breeding among Arctic birds. Ibis, 1934, pp. 816-831.BicKNELL, Eugene Pintabd.1884. A study of the singing of our birds. Auk, vol. 1, pp. 322-332.Bishop, Louis Bennett.1900. Birds of the Yukon region, with notes on other species. North Amer.Fauna No. 19.Blair, Hugh Movay Sutherland.1936. On the birds of east Finmark. Ibis, 1936, pp. 280-308, 429-459, 651-674.Blair, Richard Henry, and Tuckeb, Beenard William.1941. Nest-sanitation, by R. H. Blair, with additions from published sources,by B. W. Tucker. British Birds, vol. 34, pp. 206-215, 226-235, 250-255.Blaisdell, Frank Ellsworth.1893. Biological notes on Phainopepla nitens. Zoe, vol. 3, pp. 312-314.Blakiston, Thomas Wright.1863. On the birds of the interior or British America. Ibis, vol. 5, pp.39-155.BUNCOE, Benedict Joseph.1923. Random notes on the feeding habits of some Kentucky birds. WilsonBull., vol. 35, pp. 63-71.BoASE, Heney.1920. The display of the pied wagtail. British Birds, vol. 20, pp. 20-22.Bowles, Charles Wilson, and Bowles, John Hooper.1892. Nesting of the blue-headod vireo in Massachusetts. Ornithologistand Oologist, vol. 17, p. 102. LITERATURE CITED 385Brand, Albeet Rich.1938. Vibration frequencies of passerine bird song. Auk, vol. 55, pp. 263-268.Bkandt, Herbert William.1940. Texas bird adventures.1943. Alaska Mrd trails.Brewster, Wiijjam.1879. Notes upon the distribution, habits, and nesting of the black-cappedvireo ( Vireo atricapillus) . Bull. Nuttall Orn. Club, vol. 4, pp. 99-103.1880. Notes on the habits and distribution of the Philadelphia vireo {Vireophiladelphicus) . Bull. Nuttall Orn. Club, vol. 5, pp. 1-7.18S2. On a collection of birds lately made by Mr. F. Stephens in Arizona.Bull. Nuttall Orn. Club, vol. 7, pp. 135-147.1886. An ornithological reconnaissance in western North Carolina. Auk,vol. 3, pp. 94-112.1887. Three new forms of North American birds. Auk, vol. 4, pp. 145-149.1888. Nest and eggs of the mountain solitary vireo. Ornithologist andOologist, vol. 13, p. 113.1891. Descriptions of seven supposed new North American birds. Auk,vol. 8, pp. 139-149.1902. Birds of the Cape region of Lower California. Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool.,vol. 41, No. 1.1903. Further notes on the Philadelphia vireo, with description of the nestand eggs. Auk, vol. 20, pp. 369-376.1906. The birds of the Cambridge region of Massachusetts. Mem. NuttallOrn. Club, No. 4.1936. October Farm.1937. Concord River.1938. The birds of the Lake Umbagog region of Maine, Part 4. Compiledby Ludlow Griscom. Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., vol. 66, pp. 525-620.Brown, Nathan Clifford.1906. A great flight of robins and cedar-birds. Auk, vol. 23, pp. 342-343.Bryant, Harold Child.1912. Birds in relation to a grasshopper outbreak in California. Univ.California Publ. Zool., vol. 11, pp. 1-20.BuYENS, Oscar McKinley.1925. Some notes on the nesting material of the cedar waxwing. WilsonBull., vol. 37, p. 94.Bunker, Charles Dean.1910. Habits of the black-capt vireo {Vireo atricapillus). Condor, vol. 12,pp. 70-73.Burleigh, Thomas Dearborn.1923. Notes on the breeding birds of Clark's Fork, Bonner County, Idaho.Auk, vol. 40, pp. 653-665.1925. Notes on the breeding birds of northeastern Georgia. Auk, vol. 42,pp. 70-74.1930. Notes on the bird life of northwestern Washington. Auk, vol. 47,pp. 48-63.1941. Bird life on Mt. Mitchell. Auk, vol. 58, pp. 334-345.Burns, Franklin Lorenzo.1915. Comparative periods of deposition and incubation of .some North Ameri-can birds. Wilson Bull., vol. 27, pp. 275-286.1921. Comparative periods of nestling life of some North American Nidicolae.Vv^ilson Bull., vol. 33, pp. 177-182. 386 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMBUTLIN, STBIL M.1940. Display of meadow-pipit. British Birds, vol. 34, pp. 108, 109.Cameron, Ewen Someeled.1908. The birds of Custer and Dawson Counties, Montana. Auk, vol. 25,pp. 39-56.Cabeikeb, Melboukne Armstrong, Jr.1910. An annotated list of the birds of Costa Rica, including Cocos Island.Ann. Carnegie Mus., vol. 6, pp. 314-915.Caktwright, WnxiAM James.1924. The increase of the starling. Bird-Lore, vol. 26, pp. 323-326.Cassin, John.1851. Sketch of the birds composing the genera Virco, Vieillot, and Vireo-sylvia, Bonaparte, with a list of the previously known [sic] and de-scriptions of three new species. Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia,1851, pp. 149-154.1854. Illustrations of the birds of California, Texas, Oregon, British andRussian America.Chadbourne, Abthxjr Patterson.1890. Song of the female butcher bird. Auk, vol. 7, p. 290.Chapin, Edward Albert.1925. Food habits of the vireos : A family of insectivorous birds. U. S. Dept.Agr. Dept. Bull. 1355.Chapman, Frank Michi.eb.1892. Notes on birds and mammals observed near Trinidad, Cuba, with re-marks on the origin of West Indian bird-life. Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat.Hist, vol. 4, pp. 27^-330.1912. Handbook of birds of eastern North America.1925. The European starling as an Ajuerican citizen. Natural History, vol.25, pp. 480-485.Chapman, F. Spencer.1932, Some field-notes on the birds of east Greenland. Geogr. Journ., vol.79, pp. 493-496.Cherrie, George Kruck.1890. North American birds at San Jos^, Costa Rica. Auk, vol. 7, pp. 331-337.Clark, Austin Hobart.1910. The birds collected and observed during the cruise of the United StatesFisheries steamer "Albatross" in the North Pacific Ocean, and in theBering, Okhotsk, Japan and eastern seas, from April to December,1906. Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus., vol. 38, pp. 25-74.Common, Minna Anthony.1934. Notes on a red-eyed vireo's nest. Auk, vol. 51, pp. 241-242.Congreve, William Maitland.1936. The red-throated pipit. Oologist's Record, vol. 16, pp. 73-78.Congreve, W. M., and Freme, Sydney Wii.ll\m Patrick.1930. Seven weeks in eastern and northern Iceland. Ibis, 1930, pp. 193-228.Cooke, May Thacher.1928. The spread of the European starling in North America (to 192S).U. S. Dept. Agr. Circ. 40.Cottam, Clarence.1943. 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A nesting of the Philadelphia vireo. Auk, vol. 38, pp. 26-44, 185-202.Lincoln, Frederick Charles.1935. The migration of North American birds. U. S. Dept. Agr. Circ. 363.1939. The migration of American birds.Linsdale, Jean Myeon.1938. Environmental responses of vertebrates in the Great Basin. Amer.Midi. Nat., vol. 19, pp. 1-206.Lloyd, William.1887. Birds of Tom Green and Concho Counties, Texas. Auk, vol. 4, pp.289-299.LoETER, John B., and Patten, J. A.1941. Starlings at a blackbird roost. Auk, vol. 58, pp. 584-586.Lott, William.1939. A flicker with a family of starlings. Bird-Banding, vol. 10, p. 90.Ltjttringeb, Leo A., Jb.1927. Mother robin killed by European starling, Oologist, vol. 44, p. 95.MacFarlane, Roderick Ross.1908. Notes on the mammals and birds of northern Canada. In "Throughthe Mackenzie Basin," by Charles Mair. 392 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMMAcotTN, John, and Macoun, James Melvuxe.1909. 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A history of British birds, ed. 4, vol. 1. Edited by Alfred Newton.Zander, H.1854. Kurze Uebersicht der europJiischen Pieper, Antltus Bechst. Journ.fur Orn., 1853, Suppl., pp. 60-65. U. S. NATIONAL MllStUM BULLETIN 197 PLATE 1 843290?50 27 U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 197 PLATE 2 ^;^0%. Adult. Howard Cleaves. Hopedale, Labrador, July 21, 1912. A. C. Bent.Nest.AMERICAN Pipit U S NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 197 PLATE 3 U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 197 PLATE 4 U. S NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 197 PLATE 5 i ff^U ,^c >^JI^'-j^. .nirnmi iiw.i' \^ i ', ?*. ir-j ^ ^#t*' ? :i\.t Kittson Count) , Minn., June 16, 1929.Nesting Site and Nest of Sprague's Pipit. \V. J. Brec ken ridge. U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 197 PLATE 6 Belvedere, Alberta, June 5. 1927. R. H. Rauch.Nest of Bohemian Waxwing. U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 197 PLATE 7 U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULUETIN 197 PUATE 8 U S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 197 PLATE 9 *>'''?** U. S NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 197 PLATE 10 U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 197 PLATE 11 Near Toronto .Onr.irii Fledgling Cedar Waxwings U S NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 197 PLATE 12 Maine, July 27, 1940 Cedar Waxwing and Young. Ivlioi I'orter. U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 197 PLATE 13 Azusa, C'aliL. Ma) 2i. 1 R. S. Woods. Azusa, Calif. June 1''43. R. S. Woods.ADULT Male phainopepla and nest. U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 197 PLATE 14 I l i SI '% A ^*', iWi^ Female at nest. #. Imperial County, Calif. I^ if-.- K. N. Harrison.Male at nest.Phainopeplas. U. S NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 197 PLATE 15 Pair at nest.Churchill, Manitobri A. A. Allen. Shrike and its prey.Northern Shrikes. **^. II M. Halliday. U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 197 PLATE 16 U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 197 PLATE 17 J A. D. Cruickshank. Duval County, Fla., May 1, 1930. S. A. Grimes.ADULT AND JUVENAL LOGGERHEAD SHRIKES.843290?50 28 U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 197 PLATE 18 "^^^^ U. S NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 197 PLATE 19 Hennepin County. Minn. S. A. Grimes.MIGRANT Shrike. U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 197 PLATE 20 U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 197 PLATE 21 ^^^*^ U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 197 PLATE 22 ). S. Rowley iVloss LanJing, Calif. CALIFORNIA Shrike. Gaj-le I'ickwell. U. S NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 197 PLATE 23 .^i**'''' L : SfHtrntwit iiiitr^afeilaatj?aBag^?n,.^?gi ^ -.' ^n. ?^ A. D. Ctuickshank.ADULT Starlings. U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 197 PLATE 24 U. S. NATIONAU MUSEUM BULLETIN 197 PLATE 25 2: z U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 197 PLATE 28 Arizona. F. C. Willard.HABITAT AND NEST OF STEPHENS'S VIREO. U. S NATKiMAI MUSEUM BULLETIN 197 PLATE 29 U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 197 PLATE 30 Eliot Porter.Arizona Vireo and nest U. S^ NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 197 PLATE 31 m fr'- -yi.rSan Bernardinii C iint\ C ihl I .4'.W- I9-i5 xsllC **^ :< ?^ A. J. van Rossem. > ^j^/'' V^ i \. U f nHabitat AND NLb I up Gf^ay vireo. U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 197 PLATE 32 U. S NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 197 PLATE 33 * ^*^' ^#i l)il^..l O.uNt), 1-la., April 17, V-> S. A. Ciriines. Pennington G mil \ , Minn., June 17, I'Ml.Nests OF Yellow-throated vireo. U. S NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 197 PLATE 34 Duval County, Kla. S. A. Grimes.YELLOW-THROATED ViREO. U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 197 PLATE 35 Young. Duval County, Fla. YELLOW-THROATED VIREO. U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 197 PLATE 36 I nli.ld, Conn., May 19, 1913. H. K. Job. Blue-headed vireos. U. S NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 197 PLATE 37 U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 197 PLATE 38 U. S, NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 197 PLATE 39 U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 197 PLATE 40 OreK'iii. W. 1.. Finley. Patterson. U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 197 PLATE 41 Idaho. Oregon. \V. I,. Finle\CASSIN'S VIREOS U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 197 PLATE 42 U. S NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 197 PLATE 43 Tauiuon, Mass.. June 12. l''4l (!rice & Grice.Nest of Red-eyed vireo. U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 197 PLATE 44 U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 197 PLATE 45 L. M. TerrPhiladelphia Vireo on Nest. U. S NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 197 PLATE 46 Coeur d'AleiK. I Male Western warbling vireo. U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 197 PLATE 47 U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 197 PLATE 48 INDEX Accentor, mountain, 1.Accentors, 1.aeneus, Quiscalus quiscula, 201.Aethiopsar cristatellus cristatellus, 215.alascensis, Motacilla flava, 19.Alaska vellow wagtail, 19.alba, Motacilla, 5, 6, 10, 13, 18.Motacilla alba, 3, 18.albicollis, Legatus, 322.Alexander, H. G., on meadow pipit, 47,48.Allen, A. A., on cedar waxwing, 85, 92.on rerl-eyed vireo, 336.Allen, F. H., on American pipit, 31, 33.on blue-headed vireo, 299.on eastern warbling vireo, 368.on northern shrike, 123.on red-eyed vireo, 343.on starling, 206, 207, 209.on white-eyed vireo, 234.on yellow-throated vireo, 285.Allen, G. M., on Bahama honeycreeper,381, 382.on black-whiskered vireo, 317, 320.Allen, J. A., on Sprague's pipit, 54, 55,60.on Swinhoe's wagtail, 14.alticola, Anthus spinoletta, 37.Vireo soHtarius, 304, 305, 309, 315.Amadon, Dean, on black-whiskeredvireo, 31S.American pipit, 25, 41, 45, 51.anthonyi, Lanius ludovicianus, 147,180, "181.Anthony's vireo, 246.Anthus cervinus, 48.ludovicianus, 55.pratensis, 40.spinoletta, 51.spinoletta alticola, 37.spinoletta japonicus, 38, 39.spinoletta pacificus, 36.spinoletta rubescens, 25, 37, 39.spraguei, 52.trivialis, 45, 51.Arizona vireo, 262, 263.arizonae, Spizella socialis, 157.vireo belli, 262, 263, 265.Armstrong, F. B., 241.on Stephens's vireo, 251.ater, Molothrus ater, 201.Atkins, J. W., 239.atricapillus, Vireo, 222.843290?50- -80 Audubon, J. J., on American pipit, 31.on Bell's vireo, 253.on Bohemian waxwing, 72.on cedar waxwing, 89, 95.on eastern warbling vireo, 365, 366.on loggerhead shrike, 132, 138, 141,142, 144.on migrant shrike, 149.on Sprague's pipit, 52, 54.Aymar, Gordon, on loggerhead shrike, 140.Bachman, John, on loggerhead shrike,132, 135, 138, 141, 144.Bagg, A. C., on blue-headed vireo, 297.Bagg, A. C., and Eliot, S. A., Jr., onyellow-throated vireo, 286, 287.Baham^a honeycreeper, 379.bahamensis, Coereba, 379.Bailey, A. M., on Swinhoe's wagtail, 13,14.Bailey, Florence M., on gray vireo, 270,272.on phainopepla, 105, 110, 112.on plumbeous vireo, 310.Bailey, H. H., on black-whiskered vireo,319.Baird, S. F., on Bahama honeycreeper,379.on Boheixiian waxwing, 65.Baird, S. F., Brewer, T. M., and Ridg-way, Robert, on Bell's vireo, 256.Bancroft, Grifling, on Nelson's shrike,ISO.Bangs, Outram. (See under Thaver,T. E.)Bangs, Outram, and Bradlee, T. S., onBermuda vireo, 239.barbatulus, Vireo calidris, 316.Baynard, O. E., 316.on black-whiskered vireo, 317.Baynes, E. H., on red-eyed vireo, 341.Beal, F. E. L., 117.on Cassin's vireo, 314.on Hutton's vireo, 245.on western warbling vireo, 378.Beal, F. E. L., and McAtee, W.^L., onCalifornia shrike, 172, 173.on loggerhead shrike, 137.Belding, Lyman, 252.on Swinhoe's wagtail, 13.Bell, J. G., 253.belli, Vireo, 157, 223, 254.Vireo beUi, 253, 262, 263.401 402 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM Bell's vireo, 223, 224, 226, 253, 262. 266,267.Bendire, C. E., 106.Benson, M. B., on cedar waxwing, 83.Bent, A. C, 271.on cedar waxwing, 86, 88.on eastern warbling vireo, 364, 365,366, 369.on loggerhead shrike, 135, 136.on red-eyed vireo, 337, 338.on yellow-green vireo, 333.Bergman, Sten, on black-backed wag-tail, 17.Bermuda vireo, 236, 239.bermudianus, Vireo griseus, 236, 239.Bertram, G. C. L., Lack, David, andRoberts, B. B., on meadow pipit, 41.Bicknell, E. P., on northern shrike, 124.on yellow-throated vireo, 285.Bishop, L. B., on Sprague's pipit, 58.on Swinhoe's wagtail, 13.Black-backed wagtail, 16.Black-capped vireo, 222.Black-whiskered vireo, 316.Blair, H. M. S., on meadow pipit, 43, 47.on red-throated pipit, 49.Blair, R. H., and Tucker, B. W., onmeadow pipit, 44.Blaisdell, F. E., on phainopepla, 105,106.Blakiston, T. W., on Sprague's pipit, 52.Blincoe, B. J., on cedar waxwing, 89.Blue-headed vireo, 277, 284, 285, 286,290, 311.Boase, Henry, on pied wagtail, 6, 7.Bohemian waxwing, 62, 94.Bombycilia cedrorum, 79.garrula garrula, 64.garrulus centralasiae, 64.garrulus garrulus, 64, 79.garrulus pallidiceps, 62.Bombycillidae, 62.Bonaparte, C. L. (See under Wilson,Alexander.)borealis, Dryobates, 136.Lanius, 124, 140, 148.Lanius borealis, 114, 127,128.Bowdish, B. S. (See under Philipp, P. B.)Bowles, C. W., and Bowles, J. H., onblue-headed vireo, 292.Bowles, J. H. 246.on Cassin's vireo, 313.(See also under Dawson, W. L.)brachyrhynchos, Corvus, 219.Bradlee, T. S. (See under Bangs,Outran!.)Bradley, Guy, 238.Brand, A. R., on cedar waxwing, 94.on starling, 209.on red-e3'cd vireo, 344.on yellow-throated vireo, 285.Brandt, H. W., on Alaska yellow wag-tail, 20.on phainopepla, 104, 105.Braund, F. W., on starling, 191.on white-eyed vireo, 229. Brewer, T. M., on blue-headed vireo,292.on eastern warbling vireo, 363, 367.on northern shrike, 122.on Philadelphia vireo, 348.on yellow-throated vireo, 277, 278,283.(See also under Baird, S. F.)Brewster, William, 148.on Arizona vireo, 265.on black-capped vireo, 222," 223.on blue-headed vireo, 300. -?-on cedar waxwing, 80, 89, 90, 94.on eastern warbling vireo, 364, 367,368.on Frazar's vireo, 252,on Key West vireo, 237.on migrant shrike, 153, 154.on mountain vireo, 306, 308.on northern shrike, 118, 119.on Philadelphia vireo, 348, 349,350, 351, 353, 357, 358, 360.on red-eyed vireo, 338, 344.on San Lucas vireo, 315.on Stephens's vireo, 249.on white-eyed vireo, 227.on yellow-throated vireo, 286.Brimley, C. S. and H. H. (See underPearson, T. G.)Brooks, Allan, 68.Brooks, Maurice, on cedar waxwing, 89.on migrant shrike, 150.on mountain vireo, 305, 307.on starling, 186.on white-eyed vireo, 228.Brown, Alex, 5.Brown, N. C., on cedar waxwing, 97.Bryens, O. M., on cedar waxwing, 83.Budytes flavus leucostriatus, 13.Bull, C. L. (See under Wanamaker, Paul.)Bunker, C, D., on black-capped vireo,223, 224.Burleigh, T. D., 132.on Bohemian waxwing, 72.on Cassin's vireo, 313.on cedar waxwing, 82, 83.on Button's vireo, 243, 246.on mountain vireo, 307, 308.on blue-headed vireo, 295.on phainopepla, 107.on red-eyed vireo, 338.Butlin, S. M., on meadow pipit, 42.Buxton, N. G., on Swinhoe's wagtail,14. cacrulea, Polioptila, 157.calidris, Vireo, 316.Vireo calidris, 316.California shrike, 147, 150,? 152, 154,157.Calospiza icterocephala, 325.Cameron, E. S., on Bohemian waxwing,69, 70, 73, 74.on white-rumped shrike, 156.Cape warbling vireo, 371.carolinae, Vireo huttoni, 250. INDEX 403Carriger, H. W., 244,Cartwright, W. J., on starling, 185.Case, L. D. (See under Staebler, A. E.)Cassin, John, on black-whiskered vireo,317, 320.on phainopepla, 110.on Philadelphia vireo, 348.(See also under Baird, S. F.)cassini, Vireo solitarius, 304, 312, 314,315.Cassin's vireo, 248, 268, 269, 275, 304,312.Cedar waxwing, 74, 76, 79.cedrorum, Bomby cilia, 79.centralasiao, Bomb3'cilla garrulus, 64.cervinus, Anthus, 48.Chadbourne, Arthur, on northernshrike, 124.Chapin, E. A., on Bell's vireo, 258.on black-whiskered vireo, 319.on blue-headed vireo, 296, 297.on eastern warbling vireo, 366.on gray vireo, 273.on Hutton's vireo, 245.on Philadelphia vireo, 356.on white-eyed vireo, 232.on yellow-throated vireo, 282, 283.Chapman, F. M., on black-whiskeredvireo, 320.on starling, 183, 184, 185, 190, 199,207.Chapman, F. S., on meadow pipit, 41.on white wagtail, 4.on white-eyed vireo, 233.chiriquensis, Elaenia, 325.cinereiceps, Pi.hynchocyclus, 328.cinereus, Ptilogon.ys, 99.Clark, A. H., on Japanese pipit, 40.Clark, J. H., 222.Coereba bahamensis, 379.mexicana, 325.cognatus, Vireo huttoni, 249, 252,Cogswell, H. L., on American pipit, 30,33, 35.on Cassin 's vireo, 312.on cedar waxwing, 90.on Hutton's vireo, 242, 247.on western warbling vireo, 373, 374.Common, Minna A., on red-eyed vireo,336.Congreve, W. M., on red-throated pipit,49^Cook, F. W., 216.Cooke, May T., on starling, 183, 185,199.Cooper, J. G., 106.coronata, Dendroica, 136.Corvus brachyrhynchos, 219.costaricensis, Ramphocelus, 331.Cottam, Clarence, on starling, 187, 198.(See also under Scheffer, T. H.)Coues, Elliott, on Bohemian waxwing,63.on eastern warbling vireo, 364, 367.on gray vireo, 272, 275.on Sprague's pipit, 52, 53, 59, 60. Craighill, F. H., on loggerhead shrike,136, 139.Cram, Eloise B., on loggerhead shrike,144, 145.crassirostris, Vireo, 237.Crested mynah, 215.cristatellus, Aethiopsar cristatellus, 215.Cromer, Harvey, 186.Crouch, J. E., on cedar waxwing, 85, 92.Gumming, R. A., 218.Gyanerpes cyanea, 328,Cyanocitta stelleri, 178.Cyclarhidae, 297,Dale, E. M. S. (See under Saunders,W. E.)Dambach, C. A. (See under Hicks, L. E.)David, Armand, and Oustalet, fimile,on mountain accentor, 3.Davis, D. E., on northern shrike, 125.Dawson, W. L., on Hutton's vireo, 243,244, 246.on island shrike, 182.on phainopepla, 107.Dawson, W. L., and Bowles, J. H., onCassin's vireo, 313.on white-rumped shrike, 156.Dendroica coronata, 136.Dearborn, Ned, on v/cstern warblingvireo, 374, 378.Dickerson, L. M., on starling, 184.Dickey, D. R., and van Rosscm, A. J.,on Bell's vireo, 254.on eastern warbling vireo, 370.on Philadelphia vireo, 360.Dickey, S. S., on white-eyed vireo, 227.Dille, F. M., on white-rumped shrike, 155.Dingle, E. S., on loggerhead shrike, 138.Dixon, J. S., on American pipit, 26.(See also under Grinnell, Joseph.)Doe, C. E., ISO, 239, 253.on Key West vireo, 239.on Philadelphia vireo, 352, 353,domesticus, Passer, 136.dominicensis, Tyrannus, 145.Drvobates borealis, 136.Du Bois, A. D., 151.on Bell's vireo, 255, 257, 260.on cedar waxwing, 84, 91.on eastern warbling vireo, 364, 366.on ycllovz-throated vireo, 279.Durfee, Owen, 151,Dwight, Jonathan, Jr., on Americanpipit, 28.on blue-headed vireo, 296.on Bohemian waxwing, 69,on cedar waxwing, 88.on eastern warbling vireo, 366, 369.on migrant shrike, 152.on northern shrike, 115, 116.on Philadelphia vireo, 349, 355,357, 358, 359.on red-eyed vireo, 338,on starling, 193.on white-eyed vireo, 231.on yellow-throated vireo, 282. 404 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMEastern warbling vireo, 362, 371.Elaenia chiriquensis, 325.Eliot, S. A., Jr. (See under Bagg, A. C.)Erichsen, W. J., on red-eyed vireo, 337.erythromelas, Piranga, 306.Esterly, C. O., on California shrikes,175.Evermann, B. W., on phainopepla, 105,106.excubitorides, Lanius ludovicianus, 128,147, 149, 155, 156.Falco sparverius, 140.Farlev, F. L., on Bohemian waxwing, ' 65, 70, 74.on Sprague's pipit, 53, 54.Feltes, C. H., on cedar waxwing, 92.Fisher, A. K., 117.Flagg, Wilson, on eastern warblingvireo, 368.on red-eved vireo, 343.flavifrons, Vireo, 276,-286.flavoviridis, Vireo flavoviridis, 321, 331.Flovd, C. B., on northern shrike, 118,120, 121, 122.Forbush, E. H., on northern shrike, 119,124.on American pipit, 29.on Bell's vireo, 256.on blue-headed vireo, 291, 301.on cedar waxwing, 82, 89,on red-eyed vireo, 338.on starling, 183, 189, 190, 198, 205,208, 211.on white-eyed vireo, 231, 234.on j^ellow-throated vireo, 287.Ford, E. R., on cedar waxwing, 83.on loggerhead shrike, 134.on yellow-throated vireo, 278, 285,287.Forest, Dean. (See under Wanamaker,Paul.)Frazar, M. A., 252, 315.Frazar's vireo, 249, 252.Friedmann, Herbert, on Bell's vireo,260.on blue-headed vireo, 301.on cedar waxwing, 95.on ejistern warbling vireo, 370.on phainopepla, 112.on Philadelphia vireo, 359.on red-eyed vireo, 344.on red-tiiroatcd pipit, 48.on Tlio Grande vireo, 241.on starling, 210.on yellow-throated vireo, 287.Gabrielson, T. N., on Sprague's pipit, 58.(See also under Kalmbach, E. R.)Gabrielson, I. N., and Jewett, S. G., onBohemian waxwing, 76, 77.on Cassin's vireo, 312.on starling, 184.gambeli, Lanius ludovicianus, 147, 157,164, 165, 173, 177, 179, 180, 181, 182.Gander, F. F., on phainopepla, 107.garrula, Bombycilla garrula, 64.garrulus, Bombycilla garrulus, 64, 79. Gatke, Heinrich, on meadow pipit, 47.Gilman, M. F., on phainopepla, 104.gilvus, Vireo, 277, 360.Vireo gilvus, 362, 371.Gleason, H. W., on Sprague's pipit, 60.Goss, B. F. 256.Goss, N. S., on black-capped vireo, 222.on cedar waxwing, 94.on yellow-throated vireo, 280.Gosse, P. H., on black-whiskered vireo,317, 320.Graculipica nigricoUis, 217.Grant, C. E., on starling, 211.Grater, R. K., on plumbeous vireo, 310,311.on starling, 184.on western warbling vireo, 373.Gray vireo, 268.Greaves, R. H., on white wagtail, 10, 11.Green, Charlotte, H., on loggerheadshrike, 139.Grimes, S. A., on loggerhead shrike,133, 134, 135, 139, 140, 142.on yellow-throated vireo, 281.Grinnell, Joseph, on Alaska yellowwagtail, 19, 22, 23.on Arizona vireo, 264.on Cassin's vireo, 314.on gray vireo, 269, 273, 274, 275.on island shrike, 181, 182.on northwestern shrike, 128, 129,130.on phainopepla, 103, 104.on western warbling vireo, 375.Grinnell, Joseph; Dixon, Joseph; andLinsdale, J. M., on least vireo, 266.Grinnell, Joseph, and Linsdale, J. M.,on Hutton's vireo, 243.Grinnell, Joseph, and Storer, T. I., onCassin's vireo, 312, 314.on Hutton's vireo, 242.on western warbling vireo, 375.on least vireo, 266, 267.Grinnell, Joseph, and Swarth, H. S., ongray vireo, 268, 270, 272, 273, 274, 275.grinnelli, Lanius ludovicianus, 147.Griscom, Ludlow, on eastern warblingvireo, 370.on yellow-throated vireo, 286.griseus, Vireo, 238.Vireo griseus, 227, 236.Habia ludoviciana, 306.Haliaeetus leucocephalus, 142.Hamilton, W. J., Jr., on cedar waxwing,86.Hanna, G. D., on Japanese pipit, 39.Hanna, W. C, 15.on Alaska yellow wagtail, 21,on Bohemian waxwing, 66.on crested mynah, 218.on gray vireo, 271.on Swinhoe's wagtail, 15.Hantzsch, Bernhard, on meadow pipit,43, 47, 48.on white wagtail, 5, 10.Harding, Mrs. R. B., 122. INDEX 405Harmston, F. C. (See under Knowlton,G. F.)Harper, Francis. (See under Wright,A. H.)Harper, S. A., on red-eyed vireo, 338.Harrington, Paul, on cedar waxvving, 84.Harris, R. D., on Sprague's pipit, 51,55, 56, 57, 58, 59.Harris, W. G. F., vii, 189, 229.Harrold, C. G., 1.Hartert, Ernst, on mountain accentor, 2.Hartert, Ernst, and Steinbacher, Fried-rich, on black-backed wagtail, 18.on Japanese pipit, 40.Haviland, Maud D., on mountainaccentor, 2.on red-throated pipit, 50.Helms, Otto, on meadow pipit, 41.on white wagtail, 3.Henderson, A. D., on Bohemian wax-wing, 65.on Sprague's pipit, 53.on starling, 184.Henshaw, H. W., on gray vireo, 274.Herrick, F. H., on red-eyed vireo, 336,338.Hersey, F. S., on Swinhoe's wagtail, 13,14, 16.Hicks, L. E., on starling, 194.Hicks, L. E., and Dambach, C. A., onstarling, 200, 209.Hirundo rustica tytleri, 18.Hoffman, E. C., on starling, 184.Hoffman, L. E., on phainopepla, 103.Hoffmann, Ralph, on Bohemian wax-wing, 73.on cedar waxwing, 89.on gray vireo, 275.on Hutton's vireo, 242, 247.on white-e.yed vireo, 234.HoUand, H. M.', on Bell's vireo, 254, 261.on migrant shrike, 154.Holt, E. G., on loggerhead shrike, 137.Holt, E. G., and Sutton, G. M., on KeyWest vireo, 237, 238.Honeycreeper, Bahama, 379.blue, 328.Honvwill, A. W., Jr., on cedar waxwing,82, 9].H0rning, R., on meadow pipit, 41.Howard, O. W., 311.Howell, A. H., on American pipit, 35.on black-whiskered vireo, 316.on blue-headed vireo, 301.on Key West vireo, 237.on loggerhead shrike, 133, 138, 143.Howell, J. C., 318.Hutchins, John, on yellow-throatedvireo, 280, 281.huttoni, Vireo huttoni, 242, 249, 252.Hutton's vireo, 242, 252, 267, 269.icterocephala, Calospiza, 325.insularis, Vireo flavoviridis, 331.Vireo huttoni, 249.invictus, Lanius borealis, 114, 127, 128,129.Jameson, E. W., on starling, 199. Japanese pipit, 38.japonicus, Anthus spinoletta, 38, 39.Jewett, S. G., on starling, 184.(See also under Gabrielson, I. N.)Job, H. K., 134.Johnson, Hazel S., on American pipit,27, 28.Johnson, R. A., on starling, 193.Jones, C. M., on blue-headed vireo, 293.Jones, K. H. (See under Vaughan,R. E.)Jourdain, F. C. R., on meadow pipit,43, 44, 46.on red-throated pipit, 49, 50.on white wagtail, 7, 8, 9.Judd, S. D., on California shrike, 173.on loggerhead shrike, 138, 172.on northern shrike, 116, 117.Kalmbach, E. R., on starling, 198, 201,202.Kalmbach, E. R., and Gabrielson, 1. N.,on starling, 184, 185, 191, 194, 196,197, 198, 201, 203, 204, 205.Kelly, W. N., on crested mvnah, 216,219.Kennard, F. H., 151.on blue-headed vireo, 292,on northern shrike, 124.on white-eyed vireo, 229.Key West vireo, 236, 237.Kimball, H. H., 251.King, F. H., on migrant shrike, 153.Knight, O. W., on blue-headed vireo,297.on migrant shrike, 150.on northern shrike, 118.on red-eyed vireo, 337.Knowlton, G. F., on American pipit,29, 31.Knowlton, G. F., and Harmston, F. C,on white-rumped shrike, 157.Knowlton, P. S., on starling, 205.Koestner, E. J. (See under Pitelka, F. A.)Kopman, H. H., on cedar waxwing, 89.Koren, Johan, 129.on Swinhoe's wagtail, 14.Lack, David. (See under Bertram,G. C. L.)La Touche, J. D. D., on black-backedwagtail, 17.on crested mynah, 215, 216, 217,220, 221.on Japanese pipit, 39.on mountain accentor, 3.on Swinhoe's wagtail, 15.Laniidae, 114.Lanius borealis, 124, 140, 148.borealis borealis, 114, 127, 128.borealis invictus, 114, 127, 128, 129.ludovicianus, 128, 166, 179, 180, 181.ludovicianus anthonyi, 147, 180,181.ludovicianus excubitorides, 128,147, 149, 155, 156.ludovicianus gambeli, 147, 157, 164,165, 173, 177, 179, 180, 181, 182. 406 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUMLaniiis ludovicianus griimelli, 147.ludovicianus ludoviciaaus, 131, 132,144, 146, 149, 181.ludovicianus mearnsi, 147, 181.ludovicianus migrans, 132, 147, 148,149, 152, 155, 165.ludovicianus nelsoni, 147, 179.ludovicianus nevadensis, 156, 160.ludovicianus sonoriensis, 147, 156,158.Lawrence, G. N. (See under Baird,S. F.)Least vireo, 248, 262, 265, 269, 275.Legatus albicollis, 322.lepida, Phainopepla nitens, 102, 113.leucocephalus, Haliaeetus, 142.leucopolius, Vireo gilvus, 371.leucostriatus, Budytes flavus, 13.Mot.acilla flava, 19.Lewis, H. F., on American pipit, 32.on Bohemian waxwing, 71, 74.on Philadelphia vireo, 351, 352, 353,355, 356, 357, 358.Lincoln, F. C, on Bohemian waxwing,76.Linsdale, J. M., on western warblingvireo, 373, 374, 375.on white-rumped shrike, 156.(See also under Grinnell, Joseph.)Lloyd, William, on black-capped vireo,226.on white-rumped shrike, 157.Loefer, J. B., and Patten, J. A., onstarling, 200.Loggerhead shrike, 124, 146, 148, 149,158.Longee, N. C, 138.Lott, William, on starling, 192.lucasanus, Vireo solitarius, 304, 315.ludoviciana, Habia, 306.ludovicianus, Anthus, 55.Lanius, 128, 166, 179, 180, 181.Lanius ludovicianus, 131, 132, 144,146, 149, 181.lugens, Motacilla, 17.Motacilla alba, 10, 13, 16, 17.luteiventris, Mjiodynastes, 322.Luttringer, L. A., Jr., on starling, 205.Lyall, James, 5.MacFarlane, R. R., on northwesternshrike, 129, 130.Macoun, John, and Macoun, J. M., onSprague's pipit, 55.Mailliard, Joseph, on island shrike, 182.Mason, E. A., on northern shrike, 121.Matteson, E. A., on cedar waxwing, 91.Maynard, C. J., on Bahama honey-creeper, 379, 380, 381.on black-whiskered vireo, 317, 318,319, 320.maynardi, Vireo griseus, 236, 237.McAtee, W. L., on cedar waxwing, 88.on red-eyed vireo, 339.(See also under Beal, F. E. L., andPreble, E. A.) McCall, G. A., on phainopepla, 110.McCoy, Harriet, on cedar waxwing, 81.Mcllhenny, E. A., on starling, 198.McLaughlin, R. B., on mountain vireo,308.Meadow pipit, 40, 48, 49, 51.Mearns, E. A., on island shrike, 180, 182.on plumbeous vireo, 310.mearnsi, Lanius ludovicianus, 147, 181.Mearns's shrike, 147.medius, Vireo belli, 262, 263.Meinertzhagen, Richard, on meadowpipit, 47, 48.Merrill, J. C., on Cassin's vireo, 312.mexicana, Coereba, 325.micrus, Vireo griseus, 236, 240.migrans, Lanius ludovicianus, 132, 147,148, 149, 152, 155, 165.Migrant shrike, 147, 148.Miller, A. H., vii.on California shrike, 157.on island shrike, 18i, 182.on migrant shrike, 152, 154.on Nelson's shrike, 180.on Nevada shrike, 156.on northern slu'ike, 115, 116, 117,123.on northwestern shrike, 129.on phainopepla, 104, 108.on Sonora shrike, 156.on white-rumped shrike, 155, 156.Miller, R. F., on yellow-green vireo, 334.Mimus polygiottos, 137.Minot, H. b., on eastern warbling vireo,367, 368.Mniotilta varia, 381.modularis. Prunella, 2.Molothrus ater ater, 201.montanella, Prunella, 1.Moore, G. A., on Bell's vireo, 261.Moore, Tilford, on eastern warblingvireo, 367, 369.Morley, Averil, on meadow pipit, 42.Morse, G. W., on Bell's vireo, 256.Motacilla alba, 5, 6, 10, 13, 18.alba alba, 3, 18.alba lugens, 10, 13, 16, 17.alba ocularis, 10, 12, 13, 18.alba yarrellii, 5, 9, 11, 18.flava alascensis, 19.flava leucostriatus, 19.lugens, 17.Motacillidae, 3.Mountain accentor, 1.Mountain vireo, 304, 305,Mousley, Henry, on migrant shrike, 151.Muir, John, 119.Munro, J. A., on crested mynah, 215.Murdock, James, on gray vireo, 271.on least vireo, 267.Murie, O. J., on American pipit, 27, 33.on mountain accentor, 1.Murphey, E. E., 133.Myers, H. W., on phainopepla, 105, 107,108, 112.Myiodynastes luteiventris, 322.maculatus uobilis, 322. INDEX 407Nelson, E. W., on Alaska yellow wag-tail, 19, 20, 21, 23, 24.on Swinhoe's wa