Fig. 4. Same of Cyanospiza cyanea ♂.
Fig. 5. Two sections of a barbule of a Peacock.
Fig. 6. Section of barb of Sialia sialis much magnified.
ON A COLLECTION OF BIRDS LATELY MADE BY MR. F. STEPHENS IN ARIZONA.
BY WILLIAM BREWSTER.
(Continued from p. [94].)
33. Peucedramus olivaceus (Giraud) Coues. Olive-headed Warbler.—The Olive-headed Warbler, one of Giraud’s famous “sixteen” Texas species, has found an unquestioned place in our fauna only on the strength of three Arizona specimens, taken by Mr. Henshaw at Mount Graham, in September, 1874. Accordingly, the acquisition of the fine series catalogued below can scarcely fail to be a matter of much interest. As will appear from the accompanying data, Mr. Stephens met with the bird in only a single locality in the Chiricahua Mountains where it was apparently not uncommon in March: but he writes of a previous specimen (an adult male) taken among the Santa Catarina Mountains, in February, 1880, a date which seems to imply that the species winters in the latter range. His observations throw no light on its still unknown breeding haunts.
The specimens obtained during the past season were found in pine woods on the mountain sides at an elevation of from ten to twelve thousand feet. Although individuals often occurred not far from one another, two were rarely seen in actual companionship. The only exception to this is noted under date of March 24, when a small flock was met with on a steep slope near the summit of one of the mountains. In their actions these Warblers reminded Mr. Stephens of Dendrœca occidentalis. They spent much of their time at the extremities of the pine branches where they searched among the bunches of needles for insects, with which their stomachs were usually well filled. Occasionally one was seen to pursue a falling insect to the ground, where it would alight for a moment before returning to the tree above. The only song heard consisted of “a few low notes” which were rarely uttered, but a peculiar “cheerp” was repeated at frequent intervals.
The examples before me illustrate a fact which I do not find mentioned by previous writers, viz., that during the first year the males wear a plumage similar to that of the females. I have three in this condition; two of them, although in unworn dress, are absolutely undistinguishable from adults of the opposite sex; the third (No. 77), however, has the throat appreciably tinged with the brownish-saffron of the adult male. The females show some variation in respect to the dusky patch on the side of the head. In most of them it is confined to the auriculars, and even there is much mixed with yellow; but No. 46 has a continuous, dull-black stripe extending from the bill through the eye, and spreading over the auriculars in a broad, well-marked patch. Nos. 94 and 101 differ from the others in having the crown so slightly washed with olive-green that the whole upper surface is nearly uniform, a condition which I take to be the immature one of this sex. The adult males show but little individual variation. Both sexes and all ages have the basal half of the lower mandible light brown.
44. ♂ ad., Morse’s Mill, Chiricahua Mountains, March 14, Length, 5.10; extent, 9; wing, 3.12; tail, 2.35; culmen, .56; tarsus, .72.