_Sylvia ruficapilla_, WILS. Am. Orn. III, 1811, 120, pl. xxvii, fig.
3.—AUD. Orn. Biog. I, 1832, 450, pl. lxxxix. _Helminthophaga
ruficapilla_, BAIRD, Birds N. Am. 1858, 256; Rev. 175.—SCLATER,
P. Z. S. 1859, 373 (Xalapa).—DRESSER, Ibis, 65, 477
(Texas).—COOPER, Orn. Cal. 1, 1870, 82. _Sylvia rubricapilla_,
WILS. Am. Orn. VI, 1812, 15, General Index.—NUTT., BON.
_Sylvicola rub._ RICH. _Vermivora rub._ BON.—REINHARDT, Vid. Med.
for 1853, 1854, 82 (Greenland).—BREWER, Pr. Bost. Soc. N. H. VI,
1856, 4 (nest and eggs). _Helinaia rub._ AUD. Birds Am. II, pl.
cxiii. _Helmitherus rub._ BON.—SCL. P. Z. S. 1856, 291 (Cordova);
1859, 363 (Xalapa). _Helminthophaga rub._ CAB.—SCLATER, P. Z. S.
1858, 298 (Oaxaca; Feb. and Aug.). _Mniotilta rub._ REINHARDT,
Ibis, 1861, 6 (Greenland). _Sylvia leucogastra_, SHAW, Gen. Zoöl.
X, II, 1817, 622. “_Sylvia nashvillei_,” VIEILLOT.—GRAY. _Sylvia
mexicana_, HOLBÖLL.
SP. CHAR. Head and neck above and on sides ash-gray, the crown with a
patch of concealed dark brownish-orange hidden by ashy tips to the
feathers. Upper parts olive-green, brightest on the rump. Under parts
generally, with the edge of the wing, deep yellow; the anal region
paler; the sides tinged with olive. A broad yellowish-white ring round
the eye; the lores yellowish; no superciliary stripe. The inner edges
of the tail-feathers margined with dull white. _Female_ similar, but
duller; the under parts paler, and with more white; but little trace
of the red of the crown. Length, 4.65; wing, 2.42; tail, 2.05.
HAB. Eastern Province of North America; rare in the Middle Province
(Fort Tejon, Cal., and East Humboldt Mountains, Nev.); Greenland
(REINHARDT); Oaxaca (February and August, SCLATER); Xalapa and Cordova
(SCLATER); Orizaba (winter, SUMICHRAST). Not recorded from West Indies.
It is an interesting fact, that, in this species, we find in the
yellow a tendency to become more and more restricted as we pass
westward. In adult spring males from the Atlantic States this color
invades the cheeks, and even stains the lores and eyelids. In two
adult spring males from Chicago it is confined within the maxillæ, the
cheeks being clear ash, and the loral streak and orbital ring pure
white; while in an adult male (autumnal, however) from the East
Humboldt Mountains (Nevada, No. 53,354, U. S. Geol. Expl., 40th par.)
the yellow is restricted to a medial strip, even the sides of the
throat being ashy; the ash invades the back too, almost to the rump,
while in Eastern specimens it extends no farther back than the nape. A
male (No. 10,656, J. Xantus) from Fort Tejon, Cal., is much like the
Nevada specimen, though the peculiar features of the remote Western
form are less exaggerated; it is about intermediate between the other
specimen and the specimens from Chicago. As there is not,
unfortunately, a sufficiently large series of these birds before us,
we cannot say to what extent these variations with longitude are
constant.
HABITS. The Nashville Warbler appears to be a species of somewhat
irregular occurrence; at one time it will be rather abundant, though
never very numerous, and at another time comparatively rare. For a
long while our older naturalists regarded it as a very rare species,
and knew nothing as to its habits or distribution. Wilson, who first
met with it in 1811, never found more than three specimens, which he
procured near Nashville, Tenn. Audubon only met with three or four,
and these he obtained in Louisiana and Kentucky. These and a few
others in Titian Peale’s collection, supposed to have been obtained in
Pennsylvania, were all he ever saw. Mr. Nuttall at first regarded it
as very rare, and as a Southern species. In that writer’s later
edition he speaks of it as a bird having a Northern distribution as
far as Labrador. Dr. Richardson records the occurrence of a single
straggler in the fur country. So far as known, it occurs as a migrant
in all the States east of the Missouri, and is a summer resident north
of the 40th parallel. It probably breeds in the high ground of
Pennsylvania, though this fact is inferred rather than known. It
breeds in Connecticut and Massachusetts, and in Maine in the vicinity
of Calais, being more abundant there than anywhere else, as far as has
been ascertained.
Two individuals of this species have been taken in Greenland: one at
Godthaab, in 1835; and the other at Fiskenæsset, August 31, 1840.
In Massachusetts it has so far been found in only a few restricted
localities, Andover, Lynn, and Hudson, though it undoubtedly occurs
elsewhere. About the time Wilson obtained his first specimen, a living
bird of this species flew into the parlor of the late Colonel Thomas
H. Perkins of Brookline, and is now in the collection of his grandson,
Dr. Cabot. The latter gentleman states that when he first began making
collections this Warbler was a very rare visitant to his neighborhood,
but has of late become much more common, though varying greatly in
this respect in different seasons. Specimens have been obtained in
Western Iowa by Mr. H. W. Parker, of Grinnell.
A few instances of its occurrence west of the Mississippi Valley are
known. One of these was by Xantus near Fort Tejon; another near Lake
Tahoe, in the Sierra Nevada, by Mr. Gruber; and in the East Humboldt
Mountains, Nevada, by Mr. Ridgway. Specimens of this Warbler were
obtained in the winter by M. Boucard at Oaxaca, Mexico.
In the summer of 1854, Mr. Charles S. Paine found it breeding in
Randolph, Vt., but was unable to discover the nest. “They spend the
summer,” he wrote, “among low bushes, and probably build their nests
among the thickets. I have watched their movements on several
occasions. Once I detected an old bird with food in her bill about to
feed her young. I could hear the young birds, yet was unable to find
the nest.” Two years later, Mr. George O. Welch, of Lynn, found the
nest of this Warbler on the ground in a small thicket. It contained
young partially fledged, and one egg unhatched. The nest was built in
a slight depression, in a dry place, among fallen leaves and in the
shelter of a thicket of young oak-trees. This egg in shape was of a
rounded oval, and measured .59 by .50 of an inch; one end was slightly
more pointed than the other. The ground-color was white, slightly
tinged with pink, and marked over the entire surface with
purplish-brown dots. Around the larger end these spots form a
beautiful wreath of confluent markings. Since then other nests have
been found in the same locality, all on the ground and built in like
situations. They have a diameter of four and a height of two inches.
The cavity has a diameter of two and a depth of one and a quarter
inches. The outer portions are built of dry mosses, intermingled with
strips of the bark of the wild grape and the red cedar and a few
herbaceous twigs, and lined with a thick layer of dried carices, small
leaves of the white pine, and fine grasses. The whole structure is
loosely put together. The nests are generally concealed by overarching
leaves, which, however, form no part of the nest itself.
The late Elijah P. Barrow, of Andover, Mass., a young naturalist of
much promise, found several nests of this rare Warbler, all of which
were concealed by grass. The eggs he found varied in length from .59
to .61 of an inch, and in breadth from .50 to .51 of an inch. Both
parents, as observed by him, were entirely silent.
The Nashville Warbler has been said to be a comparatively silent and
songless bird, rarely giving forth any sounds, and these are compared
by Dr. Richardson to the creaking noise made by the whetting of a saw.
Wilson compares these sounds to the cracking of dry twigs or the
striking together of small pebbles. Mr. J. A. Allen speaks of its song
as being similar to that of the Chestnut-sided Warbler, which latter
bird, as is well known, has notes so closely resembling those of the
Summer Yellow-Bird that it is difficult to distinguish one from the
other by their notes. Mr. T. M. Trippe states, also, that this Warbler
has a very fine song, resembling that of the Summer Yellow-Bird more
nearly than any other.
These Warblers arrive in Massachusetts about the first of May, and
remain about three weeks, when the larger portion move farther north.
More recently Mr. Paine writes me that the Nashville Warbler has of
late years become a common bird in certain localities in Central
Vermont. They come and keep company with the Canada Warbler, but are
more restless than that species at the time of their first appearance.
They always in the breeding-season take up their abode in thickets,
where there are also tall trees. Mr. Paine adds that their song
consists of repetitions of single notes, the last terminating somewhat
abruptly. Their song ceases by the 10th of June. After their young are
ready to fly, they disperse about the woods and fields, and are then
not readily discovered.
Helminthophaga virginiæ, BAIRD.