_Muscicapa striata_, FORSTER, Phil. Trans. LXII, 383, 428. _Motacilla
s._ GMELIN. _Sylvia s._ LATH.; VIEILLOT; WILS.; BON.; NUTT.; AUD.
Orn. Biog. II, pl. cxxxiii.—LEMBEYE, Av. Cuba, 1850, 33.
_Sylvicola s._ SWAINSON; BON.; AUD. Birds Am. II, pl.
lxxviii.—REINHARDT, Vid. Med. for 1853, 1854, 73 (Greenland).—MAX.
Cab. Jour. VI, 1858, 113. _Mniotilta s._ REINH. Ibis, 1861, 6
(Greenland). _Rhimanphus s._ CAB. Jour. III, 475 (Cuba).
_Dendroica s._ BAIRD, Birds N. Am. 1858, 280; Rev. 192.—COUES, Pr.
A. N. Sc. 1861, 220 (Labrador coast).—GUNDL. Cab. Jour. 1861, 326
(Cuba; rare).—SAMUELS, 233.—DALL & BANNISTER (Alaska). _? D.
atricapilla_, LANDBECK, Wiegmann’s Archiv, 1864, 56 (Chile).
Other localities quoted: _Bogota_, SCLATER, P. Z. S. 1855, 143.
_Bahamas_, BRYANT, Pr. Bost. Soc. VII, 1839.
SP. CHAR. _Male._ Crown, nape, and upper half of the head black; the
lower half, including the ear-coverts, white, the separating line
passing through the middle of the eye. Rest of upper parts
grayish-ash, tinged with brown, and conspicuously streaked with black.
Wing and tail-feathers brown, edged externally (except the inner
tail-feathers) with dull olive-green. Two conspicuous bars of white on
the wing-coverts, the tertials edged with the same. Under parts white,
with a narrow line on each side of the throat from the chin to the
sides of the neck, where it runs into a close patch of black streaks
continued along the breast and sides to the root of the tail. Outer
two tail-feathers with an oblique patch on the inner web near the end;
the others edged internally with white. _Female_ similar, except that
the upper parts are olivaceous, and, even on the crown, streaked with
black; the white on the sides and across the breast tinged with
yellowish; a ring of the same round the eye cut by a dusky line
through it. Length of male, 5.75; wing, 3.00; tail, 2.25.
HAB. Eastern Province of all North America to Arctic Ocean; Alaska;
Greenland; Cuba, in winter (rare); Bahamas; Bogota. Chile? Not
recorded from intermediate localities.
The autumnal dress of young birds is very different from that of
spring. The upper parts are light olive-green, obsoletely streaked
with brown; beneath greenish-yellow, obsoletely streaked on the breast
and sides, the under tail-coverts pure white, a yellowish ring round
the eye, and a superciliary one of the same color. In this dress it is
scarcely possible to distinguish it from the immature _D. castanea_.
The differences, as far as tangible, will be found detailed under the
head of the latter species.
The young bird in its first dress is also quite different, again, from
the autumnal-plumaged birds. The upper parts are hoary-grayish, the
lower white; each feather of the whole body, except lower
tail-coverts, with a terminal bar or transverse spot of blackish,
those on the upper parts approaching the base of the feathers along
the shaft. Wings and tail much as in the autumnal plumage.
HABITS. The appearance of this beautiful and familiar Warbler in New
England is the sure harbinger of the summer. The last of the migrants
that do not tarry, it brings up the rear of the hosts of hyperborean
visitors. This species ranges over the whole extent of eastern North
America, from Mexico to the Arctic seas. It has not been found farther
west than the Great Plains and the Rio Grande. Wherever found it is
abundant, and its lively and attractive manners and appearance render
it a pleasing feature. It is not known to stop to breed in
Massachusetts, but it lingers with us till the last blossom of the
apple falls, and until the Bluebird and the Robin have already
well-fledged broods, sometimes as late as the 10th of June, and then
suddenly disappears.
Dr. Woodhouse found it abundant in Texas and the Indian Territory, and
individuals have been procured in Missouri and Nebraska. It has been
found abundant in the Arctic regions, around Fort Anderson, Fort
Yukon, and Fort Good Hope. A single specimen was taken near Godhaab,
Greenland, in 1853, as recorded by Professor Reinhardt. Dr. Bryant met
with it in the Bahamas, in the spring of 1859, where it was abundant
from the 1st to the 10th of May. He describes its habits as similar to
those of the _Mniotilta varia_, climbing around the trunks of trees in
search of insects with the same facility. Single specimens have been
procured from Greenland on the northeast, and from Bogota and Cuba.
Dr. Coues found it abundant in Labrador in all well-wooded situations,
and describes it as a most expert flycatcher, taking insects on the
wing in the manner of the _Contopus virens_.
Mr. Allen has never noted the arrival of this bird in Western
Massachusetts before the 20th of May, nor later than the 1st of June.
They again become abundant the last of September, and remain into
October. In Eastern Maine Mr. Boardman reports them abundant, and as
remaining to breed. They are there more numerous about open pastures
than most Warblers. They nest in low trees, about swampy places.
In Central Vermont, Mr. Paine states, the Black-Poll is the last of
all the migrant birds that come from the South, and is seen only a few
days in the first of June. It seldom stays more than a day or two, and
then passes north. It appears singular that a bird coming so late
should go yet farther north to breed. He states that its song consists
only of a few low, lisping peeps. It may usually be seen wandering
over fields in which there are a few scattered trees, and seems to be
a very active, restless bird.
The writer also met with them in great abundance about Eastport, and
in the islands of the Grand Menan group. It was the most common
Warbler in that locality. The low swampy woods seemed filled with
them, and were vocal with their peculiar love-notes.
Wilson states that he occasionally found this Warbler in Pennsylvania
and New Jersey, and was confident they would be found to breed in
those States, but this has never been confirmed. He regarded it as a
silent bird, and Mr. Audubon does not compliment its vocal powers. Yet
it is a pleasing and varied, if not a powerful singer. Mr. Trippe
speaks of its song as faint and lisping, and as consisting of four or
five syllables.
None of our birds, before its history was well known, has been made
the occasion for more ill-founded conjectures than the Black-Poll.
Wilson was at fault as to its song and its Southern breeding, and
imagined it would be found to nest in high tree-tops, so as not to be
readily detected. Nuttall, on the other hand, predicted that it would
be found to breed on the ground, after the manner of the _Mniotiltae_,
or else in hollow trees. Mr. Audubon, finding its nest in Labrador,
indulges in flights of fancy over its supposed rarity, which, seen in
the light of our present knowledge, as an abundant bird in the
locality where his expedition was fitted out, are somewhat amusing.
That nest was in a thicket of low trees, contained four eggs, and was
placed about four feet from the ground, in the fork of a small branch,
close to the main stem of a fir-tree. Its internal diameter was two
inches, and its depth one and a half. It was formed, externally, of
green and white moss and lichens, intermingled with coarse dry
grasses. It was lined, with great care, with fine, dry, dark-colored
mosses, resembling horse-hair, with a thick bed of soft feathers of
ducks and willow grouse.
In passing north, these Warblers, says Audubon, reach Louisiana early
in February, where they glean their food among the upper branches of
the trees overhanging the water. He never met with them in maritime
parts of the South, yet they are abundant in the State of New Jersey
near the sea-shore. As they pass northward their habits seem to
undergo a change, and to partake more of the nature of Creepers. They
move along the trunks and lower limbs, searching in their chinks for
larvæ and pupæ. Later in the season, in more northern localities, we
again find them expert flycatchers, darting after insects in all
directions, chasing them while on the wing, and making the clicking
sound of the true Flycatcher.
They usually reach Massachusetts after the middle of May, and their
stay varies from one, usually, to nearly four weeks, especially when
their insect-food is abundant. In our orchards they feed eagerly upon
the canker-worm, which is just appearing as they pass through.
Around Eastport and at Grand Menan they confine themselves to the
thick swampy groves of evergreens, where they breed on the edges of
the woods. All of the several nests I met with in these localities
were built in thick spruce-trees, about eight feet from the ground,
and in the midst of foliage so dense as hardly to be noticeable. Yet
the nests were large and bulky for so small a bird, being nearly five
inches in diameter and three in height. The cavity is, however, small,
being only two inches in diameter, and one and a fourth to one and a
half in depth. They were constructed chiefly of a collection of
slender young ends of branches of pines, firs, and spruce, interwoven
with and tied together by long branches of the _Cladonia_ lichens,
slender herbaceous roots, and finer sedges. The nests were strongly
built, compact and homogeneous, and were elaborately lined with fine
panicles of grasses and fine straw. In all the nests found, the number
of eggs was five.
It is a somewhat noticeable fact, that though this species is seen in
New England only by the middle of May, others of its kind have long
before reached high Arctic localities. Richardson records its presence
at the Cumberland House in May, and Engineer Cantonment by the 26th of
April. Mr. Lockhart procured a nest and five eggs at Fort Yukon, June
9. All the nests taken in these localities were of smaller size, were
built within two feet of the ground, and all were much more warmly
lined than were those from Grand Menan. In a few instances Mr.
McFarlane found the nests of this species actually built upon the
ground. This, however, is an abnormal position, and only occasioned by
the want of suitable situations in protected localities. In one
instance a nest was taken on the first of June, containing
well-developed embryos. Yet this same species has frequently been
observed lingering in Massachusetts a week or more after others of its
species have already built their nests and begun hatching.
The eggs of this species measure .72 by .50 of an inch. Their shape is
an oblong-oval. Their ground-color is a beautiful white, with a slight
tinge of pink, when fresh. They are blotched and dotted over the
entire surface with profuse markings of a subdued lavender, and deeper
markings of a dark purple intermixed with lighter spots of
reddish-brown. The usual number is five, though six are occasionally
found in a nest.
Dendroica castanea, BAIRD.