Dr. William T. Shaw, who collected a specimen of this warbler in northwestern Washington, says in his notes: "This warbler, a singing male, was noticeably a percher upon high, isolated cedar poles when singing, having three or four favorite ones in his territory, which was a hillside grown to a height of about 15 feet with second-growth deciduous trees, following fire. He sang from a height of from 30 to 40 feet up near the top of these old widely-scattered, fire-blasted, weather-bleached trees, clearly out in the open and isolated from green sheltering foliage beneath him, in such a location as one is accustomed to seeing lazuli buntings perch when they sing." Dr. Shaw thought the first part of the song suggested that of Macgillivray's warbler, and the latter notes reminded him of "those heard among the inspirational notes in the song of the lazuli bunting." The Bowles brothers (1906) say that, in the spring, the males have at times a very pleasing habit while singing, "that of hovering thru the air for a distance of fifteen or twenty yards. The manner of flying at these times is very slow and closely resembles that of one of the marsh wrens, but the beak is turned upwards and the feathers on the swelling throat separate until it seems almost certain that the bird will sing himself into some serious bodily mishap." VERMIVORA VIRGINIAE (Baird) VIRGINIA'S WARBLER PLATE 18 HABITS This warbler was discovered by Dr. W. W. Anderson, at Fort Burgwyn, New Mexico, and was described by Baird, in a footnote in The Birds of North America, by Baird, Cassin, and Lawrence (1860). The footnote occurs under the explanation of plates in the second volume. The warbler was named for Mrs. Virginia Anderson, wife of the discoverer. Its range during the breeding season covers portions of Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico, mainly in the mountain regions, and it retires to Mexico for the winter. It seems to be more abundant in Colorado than elsewhere, breeding from the foothills, where it is a characteristic bird and perhaps the most abundant of the wood warblers, up to 7,500 to 8,000 feet in the mountains. On the spring migration, it is abundant along the valley streams, among the cottonwoods and willows, or sometimes among the pines; but in the summer it is found among the low scrub oak brush on the hillsides. Bailey and Niedrach (1938) write attractively of Virginia's warbler in its Colorado haunts: In the broken prairie where the yellow pines have taken their stand upon the crest of the tableland, and in the rocky canyons clothed with the scraggly scrub oaks slipping down to narrow grass-grown creek-bottoms, Virginia's Warbler chooses its nesting grounds.