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Nutt (Orn Club iv p)

Orn. Club, iv, 1879, p. 26).

In writing of this species as observed by him in Ritchie County, West Virginia, Mr. Brewster says: "Decidedly the most abundant of the genus here. The first specimen taken May 5. They inhabit exclusively the tops of the highest forest trees, in this respect showing an affinity with D. blackburniæ. In actions they most resemble D. pensylvanica, carrying the tail rather high and having the same 'smart bantamlike appearance.' Were it not for these prominent characteristics they would be very difficult to distinguish in the tree tops from Parula [= Compsothlypis] americana, the songs are so precisely alike. That of the latter bird has, however, at least two regular variations: in one, beginning low down, he rolls his guttural little trill quickly and evenly up the scale, ending apparently only when he can get no higher; in the other the commencement of this trill is broken or divided into syllables, like zee, zee, zee, ze-ee-ee-eep. This latter variation is the one used by D. cærulea, and I could detect little or no difference in the songs of dozens of individuals. At best it is a modest little strain and far from deserving the encomium bestowed upon it by Audubon, who describes it as 'extremely sweet and mellow'; decidedly it is neither of these, and he must have confounded with it some other species. In addition to the song they utter the almost universal Dendroicine lisp and also the characteristic tchep of D. coronata, which I had previously supposed entirely peculiar to that bird." 659. Dendroica pensylvanica (Linn.). CHESTNUT-SIDED WAR-