took it at Oaxaca. It has been obtained in Guatemala and Jamaica. In the latter place it is found the entire season. In Cuba, in the winter, it is quite common. It has also been found in St. Domingo, and probably in the other West India Islands. Mr. Gosse states that these birds do not appear in Jamaica before the 16th of August, and that they leave by the first of April. On the other hand, Mr. March, in his notes on the birds of that island, states that on the 8th of August he obtained an old bird and two young, the latter of which he was confident had been hatched on the island, and his son had met with the birds all through the summer, and had procured a specimen on the 4th of June.
Wilson states that the habits of this species partake more of those of the Creeper than of the true Warbler. He met with it in Georgia in the month of February. He speaks of its notes as loud, and as resembling those of the Indigo-Bird. It remained some time creeping around the branches of the same pine, in the manner of a Parus, uttering its song every few minutes. When it flew to another tree, it would alight on the trunk and run nimbly up and down in search of insects. They are said to arrive in Georgia in February, after an absence of only three months. Wilson states that they occur as far north as Pennsylvania, but does not give his authority. The food of this species appears to be larvæ and pupæ, rather than winged insects. Those dissected by Mr. Gosse in Jamaica were found to have quite large stomachs, containing caterpillars of various kinds.
Nuttall and Audubon are very contradictory in their statements touching its nesting, and it is not probable that the accounts given by either are founded upon any reliable authorities. The former describes a nest remarkable both for structure and situation, said to have been found in West Florida, suspended by a kind of rope from the end of branches over a stream or a ravine. This nest, entirely pensile, is impervious to rain, and with an entrance at the bottom. He gives a very full and minute description of this nest, but gives no authority and no data to establish its authenticity. We can therefore only dismiss it as probably erroneous.
On the other hand, Mr. Audubon claims to have seen its nest, of which he gives a very different account. He describes it as very prettily constructed, like the nests of any other of this genus, its outer parts made of dry lichens and soft mosses, the inner of silky substances and fibres of the Spanish moss. The eggs are said to be four in number, with a white ground-color and a few purple dots near the larger end. He thinks they raise two broods in a season in Louisiana. These nests are not pensile, but are placed on the horizontal branch of the cypress, from twenty to fifty feet above the ground. It closely resembles a knot or a tuft of moss, and therefore is not easily discovered from below.
A nest containing a single egg, found by Mr. Gosse near Neosho Falls, and supposed to belong to this species, but not fully identified, was built in a low sapling a few feet from the ground, and is a very neat structure, such as is
described by Audubon. The egg is pure crystal-white, oblong and pointed, and marked with purple and brown.
Mr. Ridgway informs me that in Southern Illinois, at least in the valley of the Lower Wabash, the Yellow-throated Warbler may be said to be at least a regular, though not common, summer sojourner. Though it inhabits chiefly the swampy portions of the bottom-lands, it makes frequent visits to the orchards and door-yards, less often, however, in the breeding than in the migrating season. In its manners it is almost as much of a Creeper as the Mniotilta varia, being frequently seen creeping not only along the branches of trees, but over the eaves and cornices of buildings, with all the facility of a Nuthatch.
Eggs supposed to be of this species, taken near Wilmington, N. C., by Mr. Norwood Giles (16,199, Smith. Coll.), have a ground-color of dull ashy-white, with a livid tinge. They are thickly speckled, chiefly around the larger end, with irregular markings of rufous, and fainter ones of lilac interspersed with a very few minute specks of black. They are broadly ovate in form, and measure .70 by .55 of an inch.
Dendroica graciæ, Coues.
ARIZONA WARBLER.