Part 69

The ranges as outlined apply to the entire species of which two geographic races are recognized. The northern black-throated green warbler (D. v. virens) is found in all the breeding range except the coastal region, from southeastern Virginia to South Carolina, which is occupied by Wayne's black-throated green warbler (D. v. waynei).

Migration.--Late dates of spring departure from the winter home are: Costa Rica--Juan Viñas, April 17. Guatemala--Tecpán, May 6. Tamaulipas--Xicoténcatl, May 11. Cuba--Habana, May 1.

Early dates of spring arrival are: Florida--Key West, March 3. Alabama--Eutaw, April 1. Georgia--Atlanta, March 26. South Carolina--Mount Pleasant, March 22. North Carolina--Raleigh, March 22. Virginia--Lawrenceville, April 3. West Virginia--French Creek, April 10. District of Columbia--Washington, April 18. Pennsylvania--Erie, April 19. New York--Rhinebeck, April 20. Massachusetts--Cambridge, April 19. New Hampshire--Tilton, April 26. Maine--Portland, April 26. New Brunswick--Scotch Lake, May 1. Nova Scotia--Wolfville, May 3. Quebec--Montreal, May 4. Louisiana--Avery Island, March 23. Mississippi--Oxford, March 10. Tennessee, Chattanooga, March 19. Kentucky--Eubanks, March 23. Arkansas--Delight, March 26. Missouri--Forsyth, April 8. Illinois--Murphysboro, April 11. Indiana--Bicknell, April 16. Ohio--Oberlin, April 13. Michigan--Vicksburg, April 13. Ontario--Guelph, April 20. Wisconsin--Milwaukee, April 19. Minnesota--Brainerd, April 25. Texas--Rockport, February 5. Kansas--Independence, April 1. North Dakota--Fargo, May 5. Manitoba--Aweme, April 30. Alberta--Edmonton, May 5.

Late dates of the spring departure of transients are: Florida--Pensacola, May 7. Alabama--Long Island, May 16. Georgia--Athens, May 14. South Carolina--Greenwood, May 17. North Carolina--Chapel Hill, May 24. Virginia--Norfolk, May 26. West Virginia--Fairmont, May 23. District of Columbia--Washington, June 10. Pennsylvania--Beaver, May 27. Louisiana--Lobdell, May 9. Mississippi--Horn Island, May 12. Tennessee--Knoxville, May 31. Arkansas--Delight, May 30. Missouri--St. Louis, May 22. Illinois--Chicago, June 3. Indiana--Notre Dame, June 2. Ohio--Toledo, June 5. Texas--Brownsville, May 15. Oklahoma--Tulsa, May 18. Kansas--Lawrence, May 16. Nebraska--Syracuse, May 27.

Early dates of fall departure are: Alberta--Glenevis, August 30. Manitoba--Brandon, September 24. North Dakota--Fargo, September 19 (bird banded). Nebraska--Stapleton, October 17. Oklahoma--Oklahoma City, November 2. Minnesota--Minneapolis, November 2. Wisconsin--Madison, November 1. Michigan--Detroit, November 1. Ontario--Ottawa, October 25. Ohio--Columbus, October 31. Illinois--Rantoul, October 31. Kentucky--Madisonville, October 24. Tennessee--Memphis, October 28. Mississippi--Gulfport, November 18. Louisiana--New Orleans, November 4. Newfoundland--Tompkins, October 4. Nova Scotia--Sable Island, October 7. New Brunswick--Saint John, October 12. Quebec--Quebec, October 3. Maine--Ellsworth, October 19. Vermont--Woodstock, October 19. Massachusetts--Harvard, November 2. New York--Scarsdale, October 26. Pennsylvania--McKeesport, October 25. District of Columbia--Washington, October 21. North Carolina--Weaverville, October 31. Georgia--Athens, November 1. Alabama--Fairhope, November 19. Florida--Sombrero Key, November 10 (two struck lighthouse, one killed).

Early dates of fall arrival are: North Dakota--Wilton, September 4. Kansas--Lake Quivira, September 6. Oklahoma--Tulsa, August 13. Texas--Cove, July 26. Ohio--Toledo, August 20. Indiana--Waterloo, August 14. Illinois--Chicago, August 15. Kentucky--Versailles, August 13. Missouri--Montier, August 25. Arkansas--Winslow, August 13. Tennessee--Memphis, August 7. Mississippi--Hernando, July 30. Louisiana--Breaux Bridge, August 12. Pennsylvania--Pittsburgh, August 20. District of Columbia--Washington, August 22. West Virginia--Bluefield, August 29.--Virginia--Charlottesville, September 3. North Carolina--Montezuma, August 27. Georgia--Atlanta, September 6. Florida--Pensacola, September 9. Cuba--Habana, September 30. Mexico--Cuernavaca, Morelos, September 14. Guatemala--Tecpán, August 9. Costa Rica--Vara Blanca, September 28.

Banding.--A few interesting records of banded birds are available. One banded at Hanover, N. H., on September 16, 1930, was found dead at Milledgeville, Ga., on February 25, 1935. Since the bird was an adult when banded it had lived at least five years and eight months. Another banded at Groton, Mass., on May 24, 1933, was "caught" at West Memphis, Ark., on October 22, 1933. A third bird, banded at Overbrook, Philadelphia, Pa., was killed by an Indian near Tetela, Oaxaca, Mexico, about April 1, 1936.

Casual records.--A specimen of the black-throated green warbler was collected on one of the Farallon Islands on May 29, 1911, and another seen on June 1. There are three records for Arizona: one collected in Ramsay Canyon, Huachuca Mountains, on May 9, 1895; one recorded seen in the same mountains in August 1932; and one collected May 30, 1933, in Toroweap Valley, Mohave County, on the brink of Grand Canyon. One was noted on the Teton River below Collins, Mont., on June 4, 1916. A specimen was collected at Barr Lake, Colo., May 20, 1909. In Monroe Canyon, Sioux County, Nebr. one was noted October 8, 1920. At Julianehaab, Greenland, a specimen was taken in 1853; and another at Sukkertoppen in the fall of 1933. There are three records for Bermuda: May 7, 1878; February 1927; and May 1, 1928. A specimen was secured on the island of Heligoland, Germany, on November 19, 1858.

Egg dates.--Massachusetts: 26 records, May 21 to July 11; 15 records, May 30 to June 10, indicating the height of the season.

New Brunswick: 13 records, June 13 to 28; 9 records, June 5 to 19.

New York: 19 records, May 30 to July 16; 10 records, June 2 to 11.

Nova Scotia: 13 records, June 7 to 28; 9 records, June 13 to 20 (Harris).

DENDROICA VIRENS WAYNEI (Bangs)

WAYNE'S BLACK-THROATED GREEN WARBLER

CONTRIBUTED BY ALEXANDER SPRUNT, JR.

HABITS

It was a silent world, this great cypress swamp where I sought the nest of the Wayne's black-throated green warbler in the company of the man whose name it bears and who first made it known to science. A vast flooded expanse of trees and water--colorful, eerie, and mysterious--it was a realm of gray-green gloom. Huge trunks towered on all sides; long aisles of wine-dark mirror-smooth water stretched illimitably away among the buttressed columns. The grayness that predominated, from the furrowed knees and smoother trunks of the great trees to the shrouds of moss festooned from their branches, was relieved here and there by contrasting splotches of bright green overhead where occasional shafts of brilliant sunlight penetrated the canopy of feathery foliage.

Our dugout made no sound as it slid along. Only the slight splash of the paddle entering and leaving the water gave evidence of any means of propulsion. Now and again the silence was broken by the calls echoing down the flooded aisles--the clear whistle of the prothonotary warbler ringing sweetly, the full-voiced carol of the yellow-throated warbler, the strident call of the pileated woodpecker answered by the distant cry of a hunting red-shouldered hawk. Occasionally the deep, resonant "whoo-aw" of a barred owl reverberated solemnly among the cypresses, and once a sombre anhinga flapped ahead of the dugout to plunge cleanly into the still water in full career.

But above these evidences of swamp life, above the swish of breaking bass, the crashing splash of a disturbed alligator, the clamor of a startled heron or ibis, sounded one persistent call from the high branches--a song of seven notes, five on the same tone, one ascending, the last descending. It was this call that drew us on, the song of the bird whose nest we sought that morning, Wayne's warbler, the southern race of the black-throated green warbler.

To find the black-throated green warbler in a cypress swamp might seem strange indeed to one who knows the species in its spruce and balsam highlands, in the rhododendron and laurel thickets of the Blue Ridge, in the evergreens of the Adirondacks and Maine! Yet here it is, one of the characteristic avian dwellers of the warm swamplands of the South Carolina Low Country, arriving in the spring to nest amid the green cypress twigs, the drooping limbs of the magnolias, and the majestic spread of the live oak.

When Arthur T. Wayne of Mount Pleasant, S. C., discovered the first nesting of this race he was sure it was not a typical Dendroica virens virens, and on April 25, 1918 he sent a male to Outram Bangs of the Museum of Comparative Zoology in Cambridge, Mass. Later he sent him six other specimens. Upon comparing them with specimens of D. v. virens, Bangs (1918) described it as a different race, giving it the name of the discoverer, waynei. Extracts from his published material are illuminating. He states, for instance, that "this series proves to represent a form easily distinguishable from true Dendroica virens (Gmelin). I take great pleasure in naming it after the keen ornithologist and excellent observer and collector who discovered it, and who noticed its peculiarities even without sufficient material with which to compare it."

The subspecific differences are mainly a duller coloration, less yellowish, and of a paler shade, and the throat patch more restricted. Its principal variation from virens is its much smaller and more delicate bill. As Bangs points out, "measurements of a bill so small do not convey the same impression that an actual comparison of specimens does. The bill of the new form when compared to that of D. v. virens, appears not more than two-thirds as large." Certainly this is true. So marked is the difference that a specimen of waynei placed amid a score or more of virens can easily be picked out even at some distance.

The southern limit of the breeding range of virens appears to be the high mountains of Carolina and Georgia and northern Alabama, usually at elevations of more than 4,000 feet; waynei is confined to a coastal strip (in some cases less than 5 miles from the ocean) so that the intervening area between it and virens averages about 300 miles. In all that distance, no northern black-throated green warbler appears except in scattered and isolated instances. The migratory route of waynei is as yet imperfectly known, but since virens is so scarce along the lower Atlantic coast as to be virtually absent, and since it has never yet been secured or reported along the Carolina and Georgia or northern Florida coasts, it would seem that any specimen seen in those localities would be waynei.

Spring.--Wayne (1910) said of this bird in South Carolina: "This species arrives with great regularity [Charleston County] as the following dates will show, viz., March 26, 1890; March 27, 1900; March 27, 1912; March 23, 1916. It is not common until the middle of April and its passage through the coast region requires so long a time that one not acquainted with the migrations of birds might readily believe that it bred here ... that this species should remain on the coast until June, and not breed is very surprising."

At that time he was, of course, unaware that the species contained two races, but, as Outram Bangs has pointed out (1918), these March arrival dates in coastal South Carolina occur when "true D. virens is still in winter quarters in Mexico and Central America." Thus, it will be seen that the migration times must vary considerably, and the arrival of the coastal race is in advance of the true species, indicating a different and less distant winter home, another phase to consider when comparing the two.

There is almost a complete dearth of additional information on arrival dates in other southern states. My records of South Carolina arrival dates in recent years do not vary much from Wayne's, and he has no earlier ones. I have but once encountered waynei in spring elsewhere than in South Carolina, this being a specimen observed in full song in Rhetta Lagoon, Cumberland Island, Ga., on April 15, 1932. However, that it was, in fact, a migrant is beyond all question for it is not present in its United States range in late fall and winter.

In his description of the race in 1918, Bangs stated that "it would seem not unlikely that the South Carolina form is resident and non-migratory, and I hope Mr. Wayne will be able to prove whether or not this is so." This belief of Bangs' was carried into the A. O. U. Check-List (1931) which gives the range of this form as "resident in the coastal district of South Carolina." This is not the case; waynei does not remain in winter, and is therefore not resident but migratory, as I have previously pointed out (1932).

The migration of this race is as yet imperfectly known. While any coastal migrant black-throated green warbler would probably be referable to it, as virens appears to keep to the interior when travelling north, as a matter of fact there are almost no records of migratory occurrences. S. A. Grimes (MS.) tells me that he has never observed any black-throated green warbler in the area about Jacksonville, Fla., where he lives and where he is much afield, having had years of experience. Earle K. Greene (MS.) similarly states that his experience of over two years in the Okefenokee Swamp in southern Georgia failed to produce "a single individual." Strictly in line with his observations are those of Francis Harper (MS.) whose experience in the Okefenokee is even more extensive than Greene's. He writes in response to my request, "I have never found the slightest trace of the bird there." This is strange, as the Okefenokee would seem to be typical habitat for the Wayne's Warbler, but it evidently does not occur there.