_Dendroica fusca. Case 8, Figs. 67, 68_
The orange breast, fiery in the spring male,
duller in the female and fall males, is
distinctive. L. 5-1/4.
_Range._ Nests from Massachusetts (locally) and
central Minnesota north to Canada and southward in
the Alleghanies to Georgia; winters in the
tropics.
Washington, common T.V., Apl. 30-June 3; Aug.
14-Oct. 7. Ossining, common T.V., May 10-29; Aug.
15-Oct. 15. Cambridge, T.V., uncommon, May 12-22;
rare, Sept. 15-30. N. Ohio, common T.V., May
4-June 8; Aug. 12-Sept. 22. SE. Minn., common
T.V., May 3-; Sept. 4.
The remoteness of their homes prevents us from making the acquaintance
of the brilliantly plumaged birds of the tropics, but among them all we
will find none more beautiful than this flame-breasted Warbler, which
each spring comes from his tropical winter home almost to our doors. In
the summer he seeks the seclusion of coniferous forests and the higher
branches of spruce or hemlock. There his nest is made sometimes 80 or
more feet above the ground, and in late May or early June the white
eggs, spotted, speckled and blotched with brown, are laid. The
Blackburnian's song is described by Miss Paddock in "Warblers of North
America" as "very shrill and fine, growing even more shrill and wiry as
it rises toward the end."