Sp. Char. Spring male. Above bright olive-green; the feathers all black in the centre, showing more or less as streaks, especially on the crown, where the black predominates. Quills, tail, and upper tail-covert feathers dark brown, edged with bluish-gray; the wings with two white bands on the coverts; the two outer tail-feathers white with a brown streak near the end; a white streak only in the end of the third feather. Under parts as far as the middle of the body, with the sides of head and neck, including a superciliary stripe and a spot beneath the eye, yellow; the median portion of the side of the head, the chin and throat, with streaks on the sides of the breast, flanks, and under tail-coverts, black; the remainder of the under parts white. Length, 5 inches; wing, 2.65; tail, 2.25.
Spring female. Resembling the male, but the black patch on the throat replaced by irregular blotches upon a pure yellow ground.
Hab. Western Province of United States, north to Sitka; Mexico, into Guatemala. Migratory. Accidental near Philadelphia.
The autumnal adult male is much like the spring female, but the black throat-patch is perfectly defined, though much obscured by the yellow edges of the feathers, instead of broken into small blotches. The young male in autumn is similar in general appearance, but there are no streaks above, except on the crown, where they are mostly concealed; the stripe on side of head is olivaceous, instead of black; and nearly all the black on the throat is concealed.
A fine adult male of this species was taken near Philadelphia, Penn., in the spring of 1868, and is now in the collection of the late W. P. Turnbull, Esq., of that city.
Habits. In regard to the habits of this very rare Western Warbler very little is as yet positively known, and nothing whatever has been ascertained as to its nesting or eggs. The species was first met with by Mr. Townsend, October 28, 1835, on the banks of the Columbia River, and was named by Mr. Nuttall in honor of its discoverer. It is spoken of by these gentlemen as having been a transient visitor only, stopping but a few days, on its way north, to recruit and feed, previous to its departing for the higher latitudes in which it spends the breeding-season. It is, however, quite as probable that they disperse by pairs into solitary places, where for a while they escape observation. When the season again compels them to migrate, they reappear on the same path, only this time in small and silent flocks, as they slowly move toward their winter quarters. These birds also are chiefly to be found
in the tops of the loftiest firs and other evergreens of the forests, where it is almost impossible to procure them.
Dr. Cooper observed one of this species at Shoalwater Bay, December 20, 1854. It was in company with a flock of Titmice and other small birds. The following year, in November, he saw a small flock in California, frequenting the willows in a low wet meadow, and was so fortunate as to procure a pair.
Ridgway met with it in the East Humboldt Mountains, where it was rather common in September, inhabiting the thickets of aspens, alders, etc., along the streams.
Mr. P. L. Sclater obtained several fine specimens of this Warbler from the west coast of Central America, and Mr. Salvin found it a winter visitant at Duenas, where he met with it even more frequently than the Dendroica virens, with which he found it associated. Skins were found among the birds taken by Dr. Van Patten in Guatemala. A single specimen has been taken in Pennsylvania.