The Auk 112(2):510-511, 1995 Carnegie Museum of Natural History, 4400 Forbes Avenue, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213, USA An immature male wood-warbler netted north of Ocean City, Maryland, on 17 September 1965 was described by Short and Robbins (1967), and identified by them as "an apparent hybrid Northern Water- thrush (Seiurus noveboracensis) x Blackpoll Warbler (Dendroica striata)." I have examined this specimen (U.S. National Museum no. 481595) and agree that one of the parents was undoubtedly a Northern Wa- terthrush. However, I believe that the characters dis- played by the hybrid agree more with a hypothesis of parentage by a Cape May Warbler (Dendroica tigrina) rather than a Blackpoll Warbler. Short and Robbins (1967) briefly considered two species of Dendroica other than D. striata as possible parents of the hybrid, namely the Palm Warbler (D. palmarum) and Cape May Warbler. They stated that the hybrid "resembles an immature Cape May War- bier in breast streaking and breast color, but the hy- brid's larger size, differently shaped bill, lack of neck markings, and absence of any indication of a yellow rump patch seem to rule out that species as one of the parents." I see no reason to invoke the size of the hybrid as an indication of the Dendroica parentage; although the Blackpoll Warbler is indeed larger than the Cape May Warbler, there is no reason not to at- tribute the large size of the hybrid to the waterthrush parent. I would consider the bill shape of an inter- generic hybrid to be unpredictable, as nothing is known about the heritability of bill characters. As for the rump patch, there is no assurance that any such character would necessarily be inherited in a hybrid and, in fact, in many Cape May Warblers in first basic plumage the rump patch is not yellow, but a yellow- green only slightly brighter than the back color. In all plumages, Cape May Warblers have at least a hint of a yellow or yellowish area just posterior to the ear coverts (well illustrated in plate 6 of Curson et al. 1994). This is presumably the area of the bird to which Short and Robbins (1967) referred in stating that the hybrid lacked "neck markings," but in fact there is a distinct yellowish area at the sides of the neck in the hybrid specimen, contrary to the state- ment by Short and Robbins. I regard this as one of the arguments in favor of the Dendroica parent having been D. tigrina. Other characters favoring D. tigrina over D. striata are as follows. The upper tail coverts have vague but obvious dark centers, positioned like the black feather centers of D. tigrina, but absent or rare in D. striata. The crown markings resemble those of D. tigrina; again, these are rare in D. striata. The vague marks on the back resemble the broader black marks of D. tigrina rather than the linear (when present) back markings of D. striata. The general somewhat orangeish color of the bird seems more like an intermediate with the bright yellow of D. tigrina rather than the definitely greenish yellow of D. striata. Finally, Short and Rob- bins (1967) themselves called attention to the resem- blance of the hybrid to Cape May Warblers in breast streaking, breast color, and spotting of the malar area and sides of throat. Short and Robbins (1967) included a long discus- sion of white rectrix spots in wood-warblers, pointing out that such spots are present in a small minority of specimens of the genus Seiurus. As virtually all mem- bers of Dendroica have such spots, it seems unneces- sary to link the fact that the hybrid has small white spots on the outer rectrices to the presence of these in a few Northern Waterthrushes. The caption of their figure 1, illustrating the patterns of the outer rectrices of 12 species of parulid plus the hybrid, does not specifically state that these were drawn from males in first basic plumage. The tail spots in Dendroica are variable in size and pattern, depending on both age and sex (smallest in immature females) and also in- dividually variable, as mentioned in connection with Blackpoll Warblers by Short and Robbins (1967:540). In examining specimens of Cape May Warblers taken at random from the large series in Carnegie Museum of Natural History, I found that definitively-plum- aged males had significantly more white on their out- er rectrices than shown in the example for this species in the figure in Short and Robbins (1967). Males in first basic plumage had less white, but in none was the shape of the basal edge of the white spot as shown in the figure. I judge the tail spots of the hybrid to be irrelevant to a consideration of its parentage. Short and Robbins (1967) pointed out that the Blackpoll Warbler is widely sympatric with the Northern Waterthrush, but the same is true of the Cape May Warbler. I believe that the weight of the evidence favors Dendroica tigrina rather than D. striata as a parent of USNM 481595. LITERATURE CITED CURSON, J., D. QUINN, AIqD D. BEADIE. 1994. Warblers of the Americas. Houghton Mifflin, Boston. SHORT, L. L., JR., AND C. S. ROBBINS. 1967. An inter- generic hybrid wood warbler (Seiurus x Den- droica). Auk 84:534-543. Received 7 November 1994, accepted 5 February 1995.