_? Sylvia æquinoctialis_, VIEILL. Ois. Am. Sept. II, 1807, 26, pl.
lxxxi, Penn. (not of GMELIN). _Sylvia formosa_, WILS. Am. Orn.
III, 1811, 85, pl. xxv, fig. 3.—NUTT.; AUD. Orn. Biog. I, pl.
xxxviii. _Sylvicola formosa_, JARD.; RICH.; BON.; MAX.
_Myiodioctes formosus_, AUD. Syn.—IB. Birds Am. II, pl.
lxxiv.—LEMBEYE, Av. Cuba, 1850, 37. GUNDLACH, Cab. Jour. 1861, 326
(Cuba). _Oporornis formosus_, BAIRD, Birds N. Am. 1858, 247; Rev.
218.—SCLATER & SALVIN, Ibis, I, 1859, 10 (Guatemala).
Other localities cited: _Mexico_, SCLATER. _Isthmus Panama_,
LAWRENCE. _Veragua_, SALV. _Costa Rica_, LAWR.
SP. CHAR. _Adult male._ Upper parts and sides dark olive-green. Crown
and sides of the head, including a triangular patch from behind the
eye down the side of the neck, black, the feathers of the crown
narrowly lunulated at tips with dark ash. A line from nostrils over
the eye and encircling it (except anteriorly), with the entire under
parts, bright yellow. No white on the tail. _Female_ similar, with
less black on the head. Length, 5 inches; wing, 2.95; tail, 2.25.
_Young_ not seen.
The adults in autumn are exactly the same as in spring.
HAB. Eastern Province of United States, north to Washington and
Chicago; west to Republican Fork of Kansas River (Coues). Cuba,
Guatemala, and Isthmus Panama. Not recorded from West Indies except
Cuba.
HABITS. The Kentucky Warbler is an abundant species in the Southern
and Southwestern States, and has been found, though more rarely, as
far to the north as Southern New York in the east and to Southern
Wisconsin in the west. It has also been obtained at Fort Riley, in
Kansas. Its nest and eggs have been procured near Cleveland, O., by
Dr. J. P Kirtland, and also in Chester County, Penn., by Mr. Norris.
It is a winter inhabitant in Mexico, Panama, Guatemala, and Cuba.
Wilson speaks of having met with this bird in abundance from Kentucky
to the mouth of the Mississippi, everywhere quite common, but most
especially so in the States of Tennessee and Kentucky. At the Balize
he several times heard it twittering among the high rank grass of
those solitary morasses. He found it frequenting low damp woods, and
building its nest either in the middle of thick tufts of rank grass,
in the fork of a low bush, or on the ground. The materials of which
these nests were made were loose dry grass, mixed with the pith of
wood, and lined with hair. He found the eggs from four to six in
number, pure white, sprinkled with reddish specks. He met with the
female sitting upon her eggs as early as May. These birds, he adds,
are seldom seen among high branches, but prefer to frequent low bushes
and canebrakes. In their habits they are very lively and sprightly.
The song is loud, comprising three notes, and resembles
_tweedle-tweedle-dweedle_. It makes its appearance in Kentucky from
the South about the middle of April, and leaves the region about New
Orleans on the approach of cold weather. Wilson was assured that it
never remains there during the winter.
Wilson characterizes these birds as a reckless fighting species,
almost always engaged in pursuing its fellows.
Mr. Audubon states that this Warbler is the most common and abundant
species that visits the State of Louisiana and the whole region about
the Mississippi River, but is not so common in Kentucky or Ohio. He
describes it as an extremely lively and active bird, found in all the
low grounds and damp places near watercourses, and generally among the
tall rank weeds and low bushes growing in rich alluvial soil. It is
continually in motion, hopping from stalk to stalk, and from twig to
twig, preying upon insects, larvæ, or small berries, rarely pursuing
an insect on the wing. He describes its song as agreeable and
emphatic. He has never known this species fly farther than a few yards
at a time. Its flight is low, and is performed in a gliding manner. It
makes its first appearance about the middle of March, and remains
until the middle or last of September. He states that it rears two
broods in a season. His description of its nest, as “small,
beautifully constructed, and attached to several stems of rank weeds,”
etc., does not agree in position, size, or appearance with any that I
have ever seen.
According to Mr. Audubon, it feeds largely upon spiders, which it
obtains by turning over the withered leaves on the ground. The young
birds resemble their mother until the following season, when the males
attain the full beauty of their plumage. They remain with their
parents until they migrate.
The late Dr. Alexander Gerhardt, an accurate and observing naturalist
of Northern Georgia, informed me, by letter, that the nest of the
Kentucky Warbler is usually built on the ground, under a tuft of
grass, often on a hillside and always in dry places. The eggs are
deposited from the 4th to the 15th of May. Nearly all the nests he met
with were made externally of a loose aggregation of dry oak and
chestnut leaves, so rudely thrown together as hardly to possess any
coherence, and requiring to be sewed to be kept in place. The interior
or inner nests were more compactly interwoven, usually composed of
fine dark-brown roots. Instead of being small, they are large for the
bird, and are inelegantly and clumsily made. They measure four inches
in their diameter, three in height, and two in the depth of their
cavity. One nest, the last received from Dr. Gerhardt, obtained by him
at Varnell’s Station, in Northern Georgia, June 5, 1860, is large and
peculiar in its construction. It is nearly spherical in shape, with an
entrance partially on one side and nearly arched over. The periphery
of this nest is composed exclusively of partially decayed deciduous
leaves, impacted together, yet somewhat loosely. Within this outer
covering is a fine framework of stems, twigs, and rootlets, and within
this a snug, compact lining of hair and finer rootlets and fibres.
This nest is six inches in diameter and five in height. It contained
four eggs.
These eggs have an average length of .69 of an inch and a breadth of
.56 of an inch. They have an oblong-oval shape, a crystalline-white
ground, and the entire surface is sprinkled over with fine dots of red
and reddish-brown. These, though most abundant about the larger end,
are nowhere confluent, and do not form a crown.
A nest of this bird from Chester County, Penn., is a very flat
structure, evidently built in a bed of fallen leaves. It has a
diameter of six inches and a height of only two. The cup is a mere
depression only half an inch in depth. Its base is loosely constructed
of dried leaves, upon which is interwoven a coarse lining of long,
dry, and wiry rootlets and stems of plants. It was given to Mr. J. P.
Norris, from whom I received it, and it is now in the Boston
collection.
Mr. Robert Ridgway furnishes the following valuable information in
regard to the abundance and general habits of this species as observed
in Southern Illinois: “It is a very common summer bird in Southern
Illinois, where it arrives in the Wabash Valley towards the last of
April. It is a wood-loving species, and of terrestrial habits, like
the _Seiurus aurocapillus_, but generally frequents rather different
situations from the latter bird, liking better the undergrowth of
‘bottom’ woods than that of dry forests. In all its manners it closely
resembles the _Seiuri_, especially the two aquatic species,
_ludovicianus_ and _noveboracensis_, having the same tilting motion of
the body, and horizontal attitude when perching, so characteristic of
these birds. The nest I have never found, though well aware of its
actual situation. I knew of one somewhere among the ‘top’ of a fallen
tree, but it was so well concealed that the closest search did not
enable me to discover it. In most cases the nest is probably on the
ground, among the rubbish of fallen tree-tops, or low brushwood.
“The usual note of this Warbler is a sharp _tship_, almost
precisely like that of the Pewee (_Sayornis fuscus_),
uttered as the bird perches on a twig near the ground,
continually tilting its body, or is changed into a sharp
rapid twitter as one chases another through the thicket.
Their song is very pretty, consisting of a fine whistle,
delivered very much in the style of the Cardinal Grosbeak
(_Cardinalis virginianus_), though finer in tone, and
weaker.”
Dr. Coues found this Warbler rare at Washington, and chiefly in low
woods with thick undergrowth, and in ravines. They were very silent,
but not shy, and a few breed there.