Ridgway (1902) describes the northern bird as "similar to _C. a. americana_, but slightly larger, with smaller bill and darker, richer coloration; adult male with blue of upper parts deeper, and black of lores more intense; lower throat or upper chest (sometimes both) blackish or dusky (the feathers sometimes tipped with chestnut), forming a more or less distinct, often very conspicuous band; lower chest orange-tawny, tawny, or chestnut (the feathers usually margined with yellow) forming usually a distinct and often abruptly defined patch; sides usually more or less tinged or spotted with chestnut." In the same work, he describes a third form, _C. a. ramalinae_, as "similar in coloration to" the northern bird, "but smaller even than _C. a. americana_." He gives as its range the Mississippi Valley, from Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas to Minnesota and Michigan. This western race is not recognized in the 1931 A. O. U. Check-List. Our experience with the northern parula warbler in Bristol County, Mass., well illustrates the successive changes that nature and man have wrought in the distribution of so many of our birds. Many years ago, perhaps early in the last century or before, some hardy pioneers hewed out a clearing in the forest that clothed the slopes of Rocky Hill in Rehoboth, Mass., planted an apple orchard, and surrounded it with stone walls. All traces of the old farm, if ever there had been one, disappeared before I first visited the locality in 1888, and the forest had begun to encroach on the old clearing. The apple trees even then showed signs of old age and were profusely covered with long festoons of that picturesque tree lichen, often called beard-moss or old-man's-beard (_Usnea barbata_, _U. longissima_, or _U. trichodea_). This old orchard was a mecca for all local oologists, and many a set of eggs of the blue yellow-backed warbler was taken from it during succeeding years. As time passed, the old trees gradually died, the _Usnea_ disappeared, the warblers ceased breeding there, and the forest eventually reclaimed the land until today only the ancient stone walls remain to mark the locally famous haunt of the blue yellow-backs. I can remember several other old, neglected orchards that were similarly decorated with the long, gray-green lichen and that were inhabited by parula warblers as nesting sites, but they all suffered the same fate; the orchard trees decayed and were replaced by woods and thickets. During the early part of the present century this warbler continued to breed commonly in Bristol County wherever it could find trees infested with _Usnea_--around the edges of swamps and along the shores of ponds, lakes, and sluggish streams; but now this lichen seems for some reason to have entirely disappeared from the County, and the parula warbler has likewise disappeared, although it may still breed in a few similar localities on Cape Cod, Mass., where I have found it a few times in more recent years.