Owing partly to the caution of the sitting female, and more to the density of its cover, the nest of the Tolmie Warbler is not often found. When approached the bird glides away silently from her nest, and begins feeding ostentatiously in the neighboring bushes. This of itself is enough to arouse suspicion in an instructed mind, for the exhibition is plainly gratuitous. But the brush keeps the secret well, or, if it is forced, we find a bulky, loose-built affair of coarse dead grasses and rootlets, lined with black rootlets or horse-hair, and placed either in an upright fork of a bush, or built around the ascending stems of rank herbage at a few inches or at most two or three feet from the ground. Eggs, usually four in number, are deposited about the first week in June, and Tolmie babies swarm in July and August, quite beyond the expectation of our oölogical fore season.
A word of explanation regarding the change of name from Macgillivray to Tolmie is in order. Townsend discovered the bird and really published it first, saying,[28] “I dedicate the species to my friend, W. T. Tolmie, Esq. of Fort Vancouver.” Audubon, being entrusted with Townsend’s specimens, but disregarding the owner’s prior rights, published the bird independently, and tardily, as it happened, as Sylvia macgillivrayi, by which specific name it was long known to ornithologists. Macgillivray was a Scotch naturalist who never saw America, but Tolmie was at that time a surgeon and later a factor of “the Honorable the Hudson Bay Company,” and he clearly deserves remembrance at our hands for the friendly hospitality and coöperation which he invariably extended to men of science.
TOLMIE WARBLERS.
No. 80.
GRINNELL’S WATER-THRUSH.
A. O. U. No. 675 a. Seiurus noveboracensis notabilis Ridgw.
Description.—Adults: Above sooty olive-brown, singularly uniform; below white or tinged with pale yellow, everywhere (save on abdomen, centrally, under tail-coverts and extreme chin) streaked with sooty olive, the streaks small and wedge-shaped on throat, increasing in size posteriorly on breast, sides and flanks (where nearly confluent on buffy ground); a superciliary stripe continuous to nostril pale buffy; a crescent-shaped mark of same shade on lower eyelid; cheeks and auricular region finely streaked with pale buffy and color of back. Bill dark brown above, lighter below; feet pale; iris brown. Young birds are finely barred with buffy above and have two buffy wing-bars; underparts heavily and indistinctly streaked with dusky on pale yellow ground. Length 6.00 (152) or over; wing 3.00 (76); tail 2.10 (53.3); bill .53 (13.5); tarsus .85 (21.7).
Recognition Marks.—Warbler size; plain brown above; white (or pale yellow) heavily streaked with dusky below; a prominent buffy stripe over eye.
Nesting.—Does not breed in Washington. Nest: on the ground or in roots of upturned tree; of moss and leaves, lined with fine rootlets and tendrils. Eggs: 4 or 5, white or creamy white, speckled, spotted or wreathed with reddish browns. Av. size, .80 × .60 (20.3 × 15.2). Season: May 20-June 10; one brood.
General Range.—Western North America; breeding from Minnesota, western Nebraska and the northern Rocky Mountains north to Alaska and Siberia (East Cape); southward during migrations over Western States and Mississippi Valley, less commonly thru Atlantic coast States, to West Indies, Mexico, Central America and Colombia.
Range in Washington.—Conjectural—should be not uncommon migrant.
Authority.—S. noveboracensis, Baird, Review Am. Birds, 1865, 215 (“Camp Moogie, Washington”).
Specimens.—P (Alaskan). Prov.
While we have only one record, and that an old one, there is every reason to suppose that this species traverses our borders annually, since it breeds in the middle mountain districts of British Columbia (Rhoads), is abundant in Alaska (Nelson), and migrates southward thru the western United States (Ridgway). The Water-thrush should be looked for in May along the shaded banks of streams, but may possibly be found along more open margins, consorting with Pipits, with which it shares a restless habit of jetting, or curtseying, whimsically.
No. 81.
WESTERN YELLOW-THROAT.
A. O. U. No. 681 a. Geothlypis trichas occidentalis Brewster.
Description.—Adult male in spring and summer: Above grayish olive-green, brighter (less gray) on upper tail-coverts and tail, inclining to brownish on crown and hindneck; an obliquely descending facial mask of black involving forehead, lores, space about eyes, cheeks and (more narrowly) sides of neck; along the posterior margin of this mask a narrow sharply contrasting area of clear ash or white; chin, throat and breast rich yellow (inclining to gamboge); sides of breast and sides heavily shaded with olive-gray and breast more or less washed with same; lower breast and below between yellow and palest olive-gray; under tail-coverts and bend of wing clear yellow. Adult male in autumn: Occiput more decidedly brown; upperparts clearer olive-green. Young male in first autumn: Mask of adult merely indicated by black underlying sooty-brown on sides of head; coloration of underparts duller. Adult female in spring: Like adult male but without black mask and ashy edging; crown and sides of head olive gray; forehead tinged with brown; region above and about eye notably paler; coloration of underparts duller and paler, sometimes clearly yellow on under tail-coverts alone. Young female in first autumn: Similar to adult but underparts still duller and dingier, breast and sides heavily washed with brownish olive. Length of adult about 5.00 (127); wing 2.26 (57.5); tail 2.19 (55.8); bill .44 (11.3); tarsus .83 (21).
Recognition Marks.—Warbler size; black mask and white fillet of male distinctive. The female is a much more difficult bird to recognize—perhaps best known by peculiar sordid olive-brownish-yellow shade of underparts. The pale orbital area also assists, but one must live with these birds to know them infallibly.
Nesting.—Nest: of coarse grasses lined with fine grass and horse-hair; placed 1-2 feet high in tussock of grass or rank herbage, usually near water; outside 4½ wide by 3½ deep, inside 2¼ by 1½. Eggs: 4 or 5, dotted and spotted or, rarely, streaked with blackish and lavender. Av. Size, .70 × .56 (17.8 × 14.2). Season: May 20-June 10; one brood.
General Range.—Western United States and British Columbia, except Pacific coast district, east to western portions of the Great Plains; breeding southward into Mexico and northern Lower California; in winter south to Cape St. Lucas and western Mexico.
Range in Washington.—Summer resident east of the Cascade Mountains; found chiefly in rye-grass districts and in vicinity of water.
Migrations.—Spring: Ahtanum (Yakima Co.) March 29, 1900.
Authorities.—Dawson, Auk, XIV. April, 1897, 179. D². Ss¹. Ss². J.
Specimens.—U. of W. P. Prov.
Coarse grass, stunted bushes, water, and sunshine seem to be the chief requirements of this very individual bird. To obtain the first-named, especially if represented by his favorite rye-grass, he will forsake water within reasonable limits; but his preference is for a grassy swamp clotted with bushes, and he does not overlook any considerable area of cat-tails and tulés. Yellow-throat is a restless, active little body, and he is among the first to come forward when you enter the swamp. His method is hide-and-seek and the game would all be his, if he did not reveal his presence from time to time by a harsh accusing note, a sort of Polish, consonantal explosion, wzschthub,—a sound not unlike that made by a guitar string when struck above the stop. If you attempt to follow the bird, the game ends in disappointment. But if the observer pauses, curiosity gets the better of the bird, and he is soon seen peering out from a neighboring bush, roguery only half hidden by his highwayman’s mask.