Part 19

Alexander F. Skutch writes to me: "This is another very rare migrant in Central America. It has been recorded only a few times in Guatemala and apparently not at all in Costa Rica. I have seen it only once, on the Finca Mocá, Guatemala, on October 30, 1934."

Very little seems to be known about its winter distribution and still less about its winter habits.

DISTRIBUTION

Range.--Eastern United States to Panamá.

Breeding range.--The blue-winged warbler breeds =north= to southeastern Minnesota (Lanesboro); southern Wisconsin (Mazomanie, Prairie du Sac, and Glarus); northeastern Illinois (Rockford, Deerfield, and La Grange); southern Michigan (possibly Hastings, and Ann Arbor); northern Ohio (Toledo, Lakeside, Cleveland, and Austinburg); southern Pennsylvania (Carlisle); southern New York (Ossining and Whaley Lake); and Massachusetts (Springfield and Sudbury). =East= to eastern Massachusetts (Sudbury and Lexington); Connecticut (Westfield and Saybrook); Long Island (Mastic and Oyster Bay); New Jersey (Demarest, Morristown, and Elizabeth); southeastern Pennsylvania (Tinicum and Berwyn); probably occasionally in northern Maryland (Cecil County and Sabillasville); eastern and central Ohio (Canfield and Columbus); east-central Kentucky (Berea); central Tennessee (Nashville and Fall Creek); and central northern Georgia (Young Harris). =South= to northern Georgia (Young Harris, Margret, and Atlanta); northeastern Alabama (Long Island); central Tennessee (Wildersville); and northwestern Arkansas (Pettigrew and Winslow). =West= to northwestern Arkansas (Winslow and Fayetteville); west-central Iowa (Warrensburg); eastern Iowa (Lacey, Grinnell, Winthrop, and McGregor); and southeastern Minnesota (Lanesboro). The blue-winged warbler has occurred in summer west to eastern Kansas (Emporia and Leavenworth); central-southern and eastern Nebraska (Red Cloud, Plattsmouth, and Omaha); western Iowa (Sioux City); and north to Minnesota (Minneapolis); southern Ontario (Point Pelee, Strathroy, and West Lake); central New York (Penn Yan and Auburn); and southern New Hampshire (Manchester).

Winter range.--The principal winter home of the blue-winged warbler seems to be in Guatemala, though it has been recorded in winter from the Valley of Mexico; Puebla (Metlatoyuca); Veracruz (Tres Zapotes); to eastern Nicaragua (Río Escondido and Greytown). There is one winter record each from Costa Rica (Bonilla), Panamá (Port Antonio), and Colombia (Santa Marta Region).

On January 6, 1900, a dead blue-winged warbler (apparently dead from starvation) was picked up in Bronx Park, New York. It had only recently died and in all probability was the bird seen on December 10, in the same region.

Migration.--Late dates of spring departure are: Colombia--Santa Marta Region, March 21. Veracruz--Jalapa, April 7. Florida--Pensacola, April 25. Alabama--Guntersville, May 2. District of Columbia--Washington, May 30. Louisiana--Monroe, April 27. Texas--San Antonio, May 12.

Early dates of spring arrival are: Florida--Pensacola, April 4. Alabama--Shelby, April 4. Georgia--Atlanta, March 26. North Carolina--Arden, April 18. District of Columbia--Washington, April 23. West Virginia--Wheeling, April 23. Pennsylvania--Germantown, April 25. New York--Yonkers, April 26. Massachusetts--Lexington, May 6. Mississippi--Bay St. Louis, March 13. Louisiana--New Orleans, March 23. Arkansas--Winslow, April 2. Tennessee--Nashville, April 7. Kentucky--Eubank, April 10. Illinois--Springfield, April 29. Ohio--Columbus, April 22. Michigan--Ann Arbor, May 1. Missouri--St. Louis, April 17. Iowa--Grinnell, April 28. Wisconsin--Reedsburg, April 30. Minnesota--Lanesboro, May 7. Texas--Cove, March 27. Kansas--Onaga, April 26.

Late dates of fall departure are: Minnesota--Lanesboro, September 1. Wisconsin--Elkhorn, September 19. Iowa--Giard, September 20. Missouri--Monteer, September 17. Arkansas--Winslow, September 18. Louisiana--Monroe, October 7. Michigan--Jackson, September 13. Ohio--Oberlin, September 27. Indiana---Bloomington, September 28. Illinois--Chicago, September 29. Kentucky--Bowling Green, October 5. Tennessee--Memphis, September 11. Mississippi--Deer Island, October 13. Massachusetts--Belmont, September 6. New York--New York City, September 25. Pennsylvania---Jeffersonville, September 19. District of Columbia, Washington, September 14. West Virginia--French Creek, September 28. North Carolina--Reidsville, September 26. South Carolina--Huger, September 10. Georgia--Tifton, September 27. Florida--St. Marks, October 9.

Early dates of fall arrival are: District of Columbia--Washington, August 13. Georgia--Columbus, July 28. Alabama--Leighton, August 8. Florida--Key West, August 30. Mississippi--Gulfport, August 23. Texas--Cove, July 29. Tamaulipas--Matamoros, August 25. Costa Rica--Bonilla, September 8.

Banding.--Few blue-winged warblers have been banded and recovered. A bird banded at Elmhurst, Long Island, on August 17, 1935, flew into a screened porch at Westbury, Long Island, on May 7, 1937. The two places are about 15 miles apart.

Egg dates.--Connecticut: 30 records, May 25 to June 24; 20 records, May 29 to June 6, indicating the height of the season.

New Jersey: 40 records, May 16 to June 19; 29 records, May 22 to 30.

Pennsylvania: 27 records, May 28 to July 7; 14 records, May 28 to June 3 (Harris).

VERMIVORA BACHMANII (Audubon)

BACHMAN'S WARBLER

CONTRIBUTED BY EDWARD VON SIEBOLD DINGLE

HABITS

Bachman's warbler was discovered by Dr. John Bachman a few miles from Charleston, S. C., in July, 1833. According to Audubon (1841), who described and named in honor of his "amiable friend" the only two specimens taken, several other birds were seen soon after in the same locality.

More than half a century passed before the bird again appeared in America, this time in Louisiana. Charles S. Galbraith (1888), while securing specimens of warblers at Lake Pontchartrain for the millinery trade in the spring of 1886, took a single bird; in the two succeeding years he collected a number of additional specimens, 6 in 1887 and 31 in 1888. These birds were evidently migrating, for the 31 were all taken between March 2 and 20, and none could be found after the end of March. Chapman (1907) comments on Galbraith's first specimen: "This specimen, now in the American Museum of Natural History, is prepared for a hat-piece. The feet are missing, the wings are stiffly distended, the head bent backward in typical bonnet pose, and, had it not been for an interest in ornithology which led Galbraith to take his unknown birds to Mr. Lawrence for identification, this rara avis might have become an unappreciated victim on Fashion's altar."

Since then the records have multiplied; but bachmanii has always been an extremely local species, even in migrations, and breeds in primeval swamps in small colonies, which are few and far between. At the present writing, the bird is one of the very rarest of North American warblers. It has been an unattained ideal to the writer; yet, having heard much about its habits from the late Arthur T. Wayne and having visited with him the former breeding grounds, he has some consolation for not having met it in life.

Wayne (1901) took a specimen of this species on May 15, 1901, near Mount Pleasant, which was the first record for South Carolina since Dr. Bachman collected the type, and says: "I am positive that I have heard this song nearly every summer in the same localities where the male was found, but I always keep out of such places after April 10 on account of the myriads of ticks and red bugs which infest them. Then, too, such places are simply impenetrable on account of the dense blackberry vines, matted with grape vines, fallen logs piled one upon another, and a dense growth of low bushes."

Spring.--From its winter home in Cuba Bachman's warbler enters the United States through Florida, and according to Howell (1932) the earliest date of arrival in that state is February 27. It has also been recorded from Louisiana on the same date (Chapman, 1907). The majority of individuals, however, cross to the United States mainland early in March; apparently the birds that summer in Alabama, Missouri, Arkansas, and Kentucky reach their breeding grounds by skirting the Gulf coast and continuing up the Mississippi Valley. They reach the vicinity of Charleston, S. C., in March and nesting begins at once, for Wayne (1907) found a nest on March 27 containing one egg and another on April 3 with five well-incubated eggs. He calls attention to the fact that Bachman's warbler therefore breeds earlier than the resident pine and yellow-throated warblers.

Nesting.--Dr. Bachman did not discover the breeding grounds of this warbler, and it was more than 60 years before the first nests and eggs became known to science; Widmann (1897) found the bird breeding in the St. Francis River country of Missouri and Arkansas on May 13, 1897. The nesting area extended "over two acres of blackberry brambles among a medley of half-decayed and lately-felled tree-tops, lying in pools of water, everything dripping wet with dew in the forenoon, and steaming under a broiling sun in the afternoon." The first nest, which he describes as being 2 feet from the ground, "was made of leaves and grass blades, lined with a peculiar black rootlet; it was tied very slightly to a vertical blackberry vine of fresh growth and rested lightly on another, which crossed the former at a nearly right angle. From above it was entirely hidden by branchlets of latest growth, and the hand could not have been inserted without at first cutting several vines, overlying it in different directions."

Ridgway (1897) describes this nest as, "a somewhat compressed compact mass composed externally of dried weed- and grass-stalks and dead leaves, many of the latter partially skeletonized; internally composed of rather fine weed- and grass-stalks, lined with black fibres, apparently dead threads of the black pendant lichens (Ramalina, species?) which hang in beard-like tufts from button-bushes (Cephalanthus) and other shrubs growing in wetter portions of the western bottom-lands. The height of the nest is about 3-1/2 inches; its greatest breadth is about 4 inches, its width in the opposite direction being about 3 inches. The cavity is about 1-1/2 inches deep and 1-1/2 × 2 inches wide."

In 1906, Wayne (1907) found six nests of Bachman's warbler near Charleston, S. C., from two of which the young had flown. "The swamp in which this warbler breeds is heavily timbered and subjected to overflow from rains and reservoirs. The trees are chiefly of a deciduous character, such as the cypress, black gum, sweet gum, tupelo, hickory, dogwood, and red oak. In the higher parts of the swamp short-leaf pines, water oaks, live oaks, and magnolias abound. The undergrowth is chiefly cane, aquatic bushes, and swamp palmetto, while patches of blackberry brambles and thorny vines are met with at almost every step." The first two nests, found on April 17, are described as follows:

The first nest was placed upon a dead palmetto leaf, being supported by a small aquatic bush, and was completely hidden by a living palmetto leaf which overhung the nest, like an umbrella. It was in a dense swamp, two feet above the ground, and contained four pure white eggs, almost ready to be hatched.