First quill spurious, rather more than one fifth the second, which is intermediate between the fifth and sixth; third longest.
Fresh specimen: Total length, 5.40; expanse of wing, 9.00. Prepared specimen: Total length, 5.25; wing, 2.95: tail, 2.35.
Hab. United States, from Atlantic to Pacific; Cape St. Lucas. Not recorded from Southern Rocky Mountains, where replaced by L. plumbeus. South to Mexico and Guatemala. Vera Cruz (winter, Sumichrast). Very rare in Cuba.
Spring specimens show sometimes a gloss of plumbeous on the back, obscuring the olive, the contrast of colors being greater in the autumnal and young birds. Sometimes the crissum appears nearly white. The length of the spurious primary varies considerably, from .45 to .75 of an inch.
In autumn the colors are similar, but slightly duller and less sharply defined, while the back is considerably tinged with ashy.
Habits. The Solitary Vireo appears to be found, irregularly, throughout the United States. Nowhere abundant, so far as I am aware, it seems to be more common in California than on the Atlantic, while there are also large tracks of intervening territory in which we have no knowledge of its presence. On the Atlantic it has been met with from Georgia to the Bay of Fundy. In Massachusetts it has been found in a few restricted localities; in one or two of them, they are as abundant as the White-eyed. Mr. Dresser found it in Texas, near San Antonio, late in the autumn, and early in spring, but none remained to breed. Mr. Boardman gives them as a summer visitant at Calais, but not common, and Professor Verrill makes a similar statement for Western Maine, where it arrives in the second week of May. According to Mr. Allen, it reaches Western Massachusetts by May 1, but it is there quite rare. A few are presumed to stop and breed.
In California, Mr. Gambel states that it is quite abundant in the latter part of summer, and throughout the winter, frequenting low bushes and thickets. Dr. Heermann also frequently met with it. Both at the East and the West it is undoubtedly only migratory to about the 40th parallel, and does not, except in mountainous localities, breed south of that line. Professor Baird found it breeding in the South Mountains, near Carlisle, Penn., in May, 1844. It occurs in Guatemala in the winter.
Dr. Cooper states that it reaches Puget Sound by the first of May, and he has also observed it in the Colorado Valley, after the 14th, where they made themselves conspicuous by their song, but in a few days had all passed northward. He has met them nesting in May at the eastern base of the Coast Range, and has also found them quite common, in summer, on the Columbia River. Their favorite resorts are the deciduous oaks.
These birds were found breeding at Fort Tejon by Mr. Xantus, and at Vancouver by Mr. Hepburn.
Mr. Ridgway met with a few in September, in the thickets along the streams flowing from the Clover Mountains.