Part 55

Breeding range.--The black-throated blue warbler breeds =north= to southwestern and central Ontario (Lac Seul, Kapuskasing, and Lake Timiskaming); and southern Quebec (Blue Sea Lake, Quebec, Godbout, and Mingan). =East= to southern Quebec (Mingan, Grand Grève, and the Magdalen Islands); eastern Nova Scotia (Cape Breton Island and Halifax); southern Maine (Ellsworth and Auburn); southeastern Massachusetts (Taunton); Connecticut (Hadlyme); northeastern Pennsylvania (Lords Valley and Pocono Mountain); and southward through the Alleghanies to Northwestern South Carolina (Mountain Rest); northeastern Georgia (Rabun Bald, Brasstown Bald, and Young Harris). =South= to northern Georgia (Young Harris); southeastern Tennessee (Beersheba Springs); southeastern Kentucky (Log Mountain and Black Mountain); northeastern Ohio (Wayne Township and Pymatuning Bog); northern Michigan (Douglas Lake and Wequetonsing); northern Wisconsin (Fish Creek, Mamie Lake, and Perkinstown); and northern Minnesota (Kingsdale, Cass Lake, and White Earth; possibly sometimes near Minneapolis). =West= to northern Minnesota (White Earth) and western Ontario (Lac Seul). The species very probably breeds rarely in Manitoba or Saskatchewan where there are as yet only a few records and it is a recent arrival. At Emma Lake, Saskatchewan, 40 miles north of Prince Albert, 5 were observed June 27 to July 2, 1939. The first record for the Province was a specimen collected on October 21, 1936, at Percival, 100 miles east of Regina. It is a rare but tolerably regular migrant through eastern North and South Dakota, suggesting that there is some as yet unknown breeding area. The species has been recorded in migration, more often in fall, in Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas.

Observers at Aweme, Manitoba, in 38 years recorded it only twice. Another observer at Eastend, southwestern Saskatchewan, recorded it for the first time on September 21, 1937, after at least twenty years of continuous observation.

On the basis of such information it seems probable that the species is slowly spreading its breeding range westward.

Winter range.--The principal winter home of the black-throated blue warbler is in the West Indies where it is found =north= to the Bahamas (Andros, Nassau, and Watling Islands). =East= to Puerto Rico (Río Piedras) and the Virgin Islands (St. Croix). =South= to Puerto Rico (Maricas); Hispaniola (Paraíso, Dominican Republic; and Jérémie, Haiti); Jamaica (Spanishtown); and the Swan Islands. =West= to the Swan Islands; Cozumel Island; Cuba (Habana); and the Bahamas (Andros). It is also casual north to southern Florida (Sanibel Island, Key West, and Sombrero Key); accidental in Guatemala (Cobán); and in northern South America; Venezuela (Ocumare and Rancho Grande); and Colombia (Las Nubes, Santa Marta region, and Pueblo Viejo).

The species as outlined is divided into two subspecies or geographic races. The black-throated blue warbler (D. c. caerulescens) is found in Canada and in the United States south to Pennsylvania; Cairns' warbler (D. c. cairnsi) breeds in the Appalachian Mountains from southwestern Pennsylvania southward.

Migration.--Late dates of departure from the winter home are: Puerto Rico--Consumo, April 3. Haiti--Morne à Cabrits, May 6. Cuba--Habana, May 11. Bahamas--Cay Lobos, May 14.

Early dates of spring arrival are: Florida--Fort Myers, March 4. Georgia--Fitzgerald, April 11. South Carolina--Spartanburg, April 5. North Carolina--Weaverville, April 19. Virginia--Lynchburg, April 21. District of Columbia--Washington, April 19. Pennsylvania--Swarthmore, April 25. New York--New York, April 28. Massachusetts--Amherst, May 2. New Hampshire--East Westmoreland, April 29. Maine--Auburn, May 3. Nova Scotia--Scotch Lake, May 7. Quebec--Quebec, May 7. Louisiana--New Orleans, March 22. Tennessee--Chattanooga, April 14. Kentucky--Lexington, April 24. Illinois--Urbana, April 26. Ohio--Canton, April 22. Michigan--Battle Creek, April 28. Ontario--Reaboro, May 3. Missouri--St. Louis, April 18. Iowa--Sigourney, April 21. Wisconsin--Ripon, April 28. Minnesota--Hibbing, May 8.

Late dates of the departure of transients in spring are: Florida--Daytona Beach, May 21. Georgia--Darien, May 20. South Carolina--Clemson (College), May 15. North Carolina--Raleigh, May 19. Virginia--Charlottesville, May 22. District of Columbia--Washington, May 30. Pennsylvania--Berwyn, June 3. Ohio--Ashtabula, May 29. Indiana--Fort Wayne, June 2. Michigan--Detroit, June 2. Illinois--Lake Forest, June 8. Wisconsin--Racine, June 4. Iowa--National, May 27.

Late dates of fall departure are: North Dakota--Fargo, October 21 (bird banded). Minnesota--Minneapolis, October 3. Wisconsin--Milwaukee, October 16. Iowa--Sigourney, October 20. Illinois--Chicago, October 25. Michigan--Grand Rapids, November 1. Indiana--Indianapolis, October 14. Ontario--Port Dover, October 27. Ohio--Medina, October 30. Kentucky--Eubank, October 22. Tennessee--Athens, October 18. Mississippi--Gulfport, October 12. Quebec--Montreal, October 15. New Brunswick--Saint John, October 11. Maine--Portland, October 17. New Hampshire--Water Village, October 8. Massachusetts--Cambridge, November 7. New York--Fire Island, October 24. Pennsylvania--Harrisburg, October 24. District of Columbia--Washington, October 29. Virginia--Lexington, October 15. North Carolina--Highlands, November 14. South Carolina--Clemson (College), October 17. Georgia--Athens, November 2. Florida--Fernandina, November 15.

Early dates of fall arrival are: Wisconsin--New London, August 23. Michigan--Grand Rapids, August 26. Ohio--Toledo, August 24. Illinois--La Grange, August 24. District of Columbia--Washington, August 21. Virginia--Charlottesville, September 12. North Carolina--Mount Mitchell, September 1. South Carolina--Mount Pleasant, August 30. Georgia--Savannah, August 28. Florida--Coconut Grove, August 29. Cuba--Cienfuegos, September 2. Dominican Republic--El Río, October 5. Puerto Rico--Las Marías, October 12.

Casual records.--On the Farallon Islands, Calif., a specimen was found dead on November 17, 1886; it had been previously observed for three weeks. In New Mexico a specimen was taken at Gallinas Mountain on October 8, 1904, and on October 9, 1938 another was collected in Milk Ranch Canyon near Fort Wingate. In Bermuda a specimen was collected October 2, 1902; and it is considered a rare winter visitor. An individual spending the winter at a feeding stand in the suburbs of Washington, D. C., was observed closely from December 22, 1930, to January 16, 1931.

At sea the black-throated blue warbler has been observed on October 27, 1921, 12 hours run out from Port-au-Prince, Haiti, toward New York; and on March 29, 1918, in the Gulf of Mexico, 125 miles from Sabine Pass, La.

Destruction at lighthouses.--Lighthouses with fixed white lights have caused considerable destruction of bird life during migration and the black-throated blue warbler seems to have been especially lured to those in southern Florida. Records were received from several of these lighthouses over a period of 5 or 6 years. Those from Sombrero Key are most detailed and give an interesting picture of migration at that point, since they include date, weather conditions, number of birds that struck, number killed, and hours during which the birds struck the light.

Comparatively fewer birds struck the light in spring than in fall. The spring dates are from March 9 to May 29; but in 4 years birds are reported to have struck the light only on 24 nights and 4 individuals is the greatest number reported.

In the fall, the records extend from September 3 to December 5, the heaviest nights being from the middle of September to late October. In two different years birds struck the light on 19 nights in two months. The greatest number in one night was 400 with 56 killed. In one of those years 1146 birds struck the light; of these 193 were killed. It was not only on stormy nights that the birds were attracted, as 130 struck and 15 were killed on a night described as calm and dark. Sometimes they kept striking all night, but on others the flight seems to have been concentrated, as when 300 birds struck in 3-1/2 hours. On a few occasions the mortality was as high as one-third of the birds that struck.

On the night of January 26, 1886, two birds struck the light. These were either wintering birds or extremely early migrants.

Egg dates.--Massachusetts: 6 records, May 28 to July 5; 3 records, June 2 to 8.

New Hampshire: 17 records, June 3 to 22; 9 records, June 10 to 15.

New York: 51 records, May 29 to June 20; 37 records, June 3 to 12, indicating the height of the season.

Pennsylvania: 57 records, May 25 to June 26; 32 records, May 30 to June 6.

North Carolina: 10 records, May 5 to June 22; 6 records, June 4 to 11.

Virginia: 19 records, May 26 to June 18; 14 records, May 27 to June 4 (Harris).

DENDROICA CAERULESCENS CAIRNSI Coues

CAIRNS' WARBLER

PLATE 31

HABITS

This local race of the black-throated blue warbler, breeding in the southern Alleghenies, was named by Dr. Elliott Coues (1897) in honor of its discoverer and original describer, John S. Cairns of Weaverville, N.C. Dr. Coues, at that time, mentioned only the characters of the male, but those of the female are fully as well, perhaps more satisfactorily, marked than those of the male. Ridgway (1902) describes both very well and concisely as follows:

"Similar to D. c. caerulescens, but adult male darker above, especially the pileum, which is not lighter blue than the back, the latter usually more or less spotted or clouded with black, sometimes chiefly black, the pileum sometimes streaked with black; adult female darker and duller olive above and less yellowish beneath, with the olive of flanks darker and more strongly contrasted with the pale olive-yellowish of abdomen." In discussing its distribution, he was unable to define its breeding range with any degree of accuracy; and adds in a footnote: "On the whole, the form is not a very satisfactory one, one of the two characters on which it was based (smaller size) failing altogether (D. c. cairnsi averaging slightly larger, in fact, than D. c. caerulescens), and the other only partially so, since many specimens of D. c. cairnsi have little if any black on the back, while many of D. c. caerulescens have quite as much as the average amount shown in D. c. cairnsi."