Part 13

When the singer begins his performance, the bill is pointed directly up, and he seems entirely unconscious of anything but his own musical efforts. "During his intervals of silence," says N. C. Brown (1878), "he remains motionless, with plumage ruffled, as if completely lost in musical reverie." Brewster (1885a) adds:

It is very loud, very rich, very beautiful, while it has an indescribably tender quality that thrills the senses after the sound has ceased. * * * Although a rarely fervent and ecstatic songster, our little friend is also a fitful and uncertain one. You may wait for hours near his retreat, even in early morning, or late afternoon, without hearing a note. But when the inspiration comes he floods the woods with music, one song often following another so quickly that there is scarce a pause for breath between. In this manner I have known him to sing for fully twenty minutes, although ordinarily the entire performance occupies less than half that time. Such outbursts may occur at almost any hour, even at noontide, and I have heard them in the gloomiest weather, when the woods were shrouded in mist and rain.

Several times the writer has seen males when the inspiration had not quite come to them; the bird would throw back its head but utter only one or two opening notes of his song.

The call note is a chip, which Brewster calls "a soft tchip indistinguishable from that of Parula americana." But Murray (1935) writes that it is "more throaty and full-bodied than that of most Warblers." Brooks and Legg (1942) describe it as "clear, penetrating chirps, having (to our ears) much the same quality as do the chirps of the Mourning Warbler. They are not quite so loud, but have a more ringing quality than those of the Hooded Warbler."

Field marks.--[AUTHOR'S NOTE: Swainson's warbler is a plainly colored bird, with no conspicuous field marks. It is brownish olive above and whitish below, with no white in either wings or tail; there is a whitish line over the eye and a dusky streak through it; but the bill is long and sharply pointed.]

DISTRIBUTION

Range.--Southeastern United States to southern Mexico.

Breeding range.--Until about 1935 Swainson's warbler was considered to be confined in summer to the southern canebrakes and coastal marshes. It is now known to breed =north= to extreme southern Illinois, probably (seen in breeding season to Olive Branch, Duquoin, and Mount Carmel); southeastern Kentucky (Big Black Mountain); central to northern West Virginia (Charleston, Mount Lookout, Sutton, and Buzzard Rocks, Monongalia County); and southeastern Maryland (Pocomoke River Swamp). =East= to eastern Maryland (Pocomoke River Swamp); eastern Virginia (Warwick County and Dismal Swamp); eastern North Carolina (New Bern, Lake Ellis, and Red Springs); eastern South Carolina (Summerton, Charleston, and Yemassee); eastern Georgia (Savannah and Okefinokee Swamp); and northeastern Florida (Jacksonville). =South= to northern Florida (Jacksonville, Oldtown, Whitfield, and Pensacola) and southern Louisiana (Mandeville, New Orleans, and Baton Rouge). =West= to eastern Louisiana (Baton Rouge, Bayou Sara, and Jena); central Arkansas (Camden and Conway); extreme northeastern Oklahoma (Copan); and central Missouri (Concordia).

Within this large breeding area are two almost discontinuous breeding ranges: the coastal and swamp range long considered the only home of the species; and the more recently discovered mountain home along the slopes of the Allegheny Mountains from northern West Virginia nearly to the Georgia line where it has been found to an altitude of nearly 3,000 feet.

Winter range.--The winter home of the Swainson's warbler is very imperfectly known from a dozen or more specimens, most of which are from Jamaica where it has been listed as a rare winter resident. There are records also from the Swan Islands (March 1); Santa Lucia, Quintana Roo; Pacaytain, Campeche; and the city of Veracruz. Two specimens have been taken near Habana, Cuba; one on September 25, the other in April; and one near Guantánamo on January 18, 1914.

Migration.--Dates of spring departure are: Jamaica, April 8. Cuba--Habana, April 14.

Early dates of spring arrival are: Florida--St. Petersburg, March 25. Alabama--Autaugaville, April 3. Georgia--Savannah, March 25. South Carolina, April 1. Louisiana--New Orleans, March 30. Mississippi--Biloxi, March 31. Tennessee--Memphis, April 20. Texas--Point Bolivar, April 17.

Late dates of fall departure are: Texas--Kemah, September 27. Tennessee--Sulphur Springs, September 9. Mississippi--Gulfport, October 6. South Carolina--Charleston, October 10. Georgia--Savannah, October 18. Alabama--Greensboro, September 6. Florida--Pensacola, October 2; Sombrero Key (4 struck lighthouse November 10).

Dates of fall arrival are: Tamaulipas--Matamoros, August 29. Jamaica, October 1.

Casual records.--A specimen was recorded near Corsicana, Tex., on August 24, 1880; another was collected at Kearney, Nebr., on April 9, 1905; and one near Holly, Prowers County, Colo., on May 12, 1913.

Egg dates.--Florida: 3 records, May 7. Georgia: 35 records, May 4 to July 13; 19 records, May 29 to June 17, indicating the height of the season. South Carolina: 28 records, May 2 to June 30; 14 records. May 12 to June 12 (Harris).

HELMITHEROS VERMIVOROS (Gmelin)

WORM-EATING WARBLER

PLATE 10

HABITS

The breeding range of the worm-eating warbler covers much of the central portion of the United States east of the prairie regions. Its center of abundance seems to be in the vicinity of Pennsylvania, but it breeds less abundantly northward to southern Iowa, New York, and New England and southward to Missouri and to northern Alabama and Georgia, as well as in much of the intervening wooded region, where it is essentially a woodland bird.

The distribution, migration, and habits of this warbler were but poorly understood by the early writers on American birds, and neither Wilson nor Audubon ever saw its nest; the latter's description of the nest, probably from hearsay, is entirely wrong. Frank L. Burns writes to me: "Bartram neglected to list this species, although he had furnished the type to Edwards 35 years earlier, and from the information furnished by the youthful Bartram it doubtless received its name, which is a misnomer perpetuated by Gmelin in his Motacilla vermivora." Mr. Burns says further on in his notes: "I searched for 10 seasons before I found my first nest, and oddly enough it was through the parent bird carrying a 'worm' to its young; nevertheless I have since thought that a more fitting name for the species would have been hillside or laurel warbler."

Hillside warbler would not be a bad name for this bird, which shows a decided preference for wooded hillsides covered with medium-sized deciduous trees and an undergrowth of saplings and small shrubbery. Often a running stream with numerous swampy places, overgrown with brier tangles and alders, bounds the base of the hill as an additional attraction. It is seldom seen outside of its favorite woods and returns year after year to the same chosen haunts.

W. E. Clyde Todd (1940) says that in western Pennsylvania "wooded slopes are its chosen abodes, the shadier and cooler the better. * * * Deep ravines, down which trickle little streams, and the slopes of which support good stands of deciduous trees, with plenty of shrubbery and bushes for cover, are favorite resorts." In Ritchie County, W. Va., William Brewster (1875) found it "most partial to the retired thickets in the woods along water courses, and seldom or never found in the high open groves."

Spring.--The northward movement of the worm-eating warbler evidently begins in March, as the earliest arrivals from the Bahamas, the West Indies, and Cuba reach southern Florida during the first week in April. From its main winter resorts in Central America the flight seems to be partially across the Gulf of Mexico. Professor Cooke (1904) says in part: "The time of arrival on the coasts of Louisiana and Texas is about the same as in southern Florida. * * * Houston is the southernmost point in Texas from which it has been recorded to date, and Alta Mira is the northernmost point of record in Mexico. Since the species is apparently not common west of Louisiana or north of Vera Cruz, it is probable that the principal line of migration is from Yucatan and the coast immediately west of Yucatan directly north to the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico." According to Williams (1945) the species is common on the coast of Texas in spring, and it probably migrates along the coast. Thence the migration proceeds northward through the Mississippi Valley and through the Atlantic Coast States east of the Alleghenies, the warblers reaching the more northern breeding grounds by the middle of May, where nesting activities begin as soon as mates have been selected.

Nesting.--Evidently Thomas H. Jackson, of West Chester, Pa., was the first to report the discovery of the nest of the worm-eating warbler; he published an account of it in the American Naturalist for December 1869, from which Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway (1874) quote as follows: "On the 6th of June, 1869, I found a nest of this species containing five eggs. It was placed in a hollow on the ground, much like the nests of the Oven-Bird (Seiurus aurocapillus), and was well hidden from sight by the dry leaves that lay thickly around. The nest was composed externally of dead leaves, mostly those of the beech, while the interior was prettily lined with the fine, thread-like stalks of the hair-moss (Polytrichium). * * * So close did the female sit that I captured her without difficulty by placing my hat over the nest."

This nest was quite characteristic of the species. Mr. Burns writes to me: "The nest, well hidden under a drift of dead forest leaves, never varied in composition in over a hundred examples examined by me, in partly skeletonized leaves and the characteristic reddish-brown lining of the flower stem of the hair moss." Every one of 50 nests found by Mr. Jackson was lined with these flower stems, and out of 34 nests reported by Dr. Samuel S. Dickey (1934) only one failed to contain this material, being lined with "black and gray horsehair." Samuel B. Ladd (1887) says that "sometimes fine grass and horse-hair are used as part of the lining." Dr. Chapman (1907) writes: "Nests taken by J. N. Clark at Saybrook, Connecticut (C. W. C.) are composed of decayed leaves and lined with stems of maple seeds." And there are probably a few other exceptions to the rule.

Most observers agree that the worm-eating warbler prefers to nest on hillsides, either sloping or steep, but a number of nests have been found on the sides of deep, shady ravines, or on steep banks. Mr. Ladd (1887), however, states: "I have observed that these birds are not confined necessarily to hill-sides, as was heretofore supposed, as I have taken three sets on level ground and in rather open places, with little shade. The experience of Mr. Thomas H. Jackson of this place, who has taken ten nests this year, corroborates this fact."