Life Histories of North American Wood Warblers, Part One and Part Two. Arthur Cleveland Bent
South Dakota (Yankton and Sioux Falls); and central Minnesota (Brainerd). North to southern Ontario (London and Hamilton); central New York (Ithaca); Massachusetts (Northampton, Amherst, and Concord); New Hampshire (Concord); and Maine (Matinicus Island and Calais).
Winter range.—The winter home of the prothonotary warbler is in Central America and northwestern South America where it has been found north to northwestern Costa Rica (Bolson); Nicaragua (Escondido River). East to northwestern Venezuela (Mérida and Encontrados); and western Colombia (San José de Cucuta and Villavieja). South to southwestern Colombia (Villavieja); and northwestern Ecuador (Esmeraldas). West to northwestern Ecuador (Esmeraldas); western Colombia (Antioquia); western Panamá (Paracote and David); and Costa Rica (Puntarenas and Bolson). It has been reported to occur in winter in Campeche and on Cozumel Island, Mexico, and casually or accidentally in Cuba (Habana), Jamaica, and St. Croix, Virgin Islands.
Migration.—The probable route of the prothonotary warbler between its summer and winter homes is across the Gulf of Mexico, from the Yucatan peninsula where it occurs in both spring and fall migration. The casual or accidental occurrences of this warbler in Cuba (Habana); Jamaica; and St. Croix, Virgin Islands, are in migration.
Late dates of spring departure are: Colombia—Villavieja, February 5. Panamá; Canal Zone—Barro Colorado, March 10. Nicaragua—Edén, March 23. Quintana Roo—Cozumel, April 6. Cuba—Habana, April 4.
Early dates of spring arrival are: Yucatán—Mérida, March 28. Jamaica—Black River, February 28. Cuba—Habana, March 31. Florida—Pensacola, March 18. Alabama—Booth, April 4. Georgia—Fitzgerald, March 21. South Carolina—Yemassee, March 27. North Carolina—Greenville, April 6. Virginia—Suffolk, April 10. Mississippi—Gulfport, March 18. Louisiana—Morgan City, March 10. Texas—Cove, March 28. Arkansas—Huttig, March 31. Missouri—St. Louis, April 17. Kentucky—Bowling Green, April 5. Illinois—Murphysboro, April 17. Ohio—Berlin Center, April 18. Michigan—Grand Rapids, May 3. Iowa—Iowa City, April 26. Wisconsin—Madison, May 2. Minnesota—Red Wing, May 7. Oklahoma—Tulsa, April 2. Kansas—Manhattan, April 26. Nebraska—Blue Springs, April 30.
Late dates of fall departure are: Nebraska—Watson, September 1. Oklahoma—Oklahoma City, September 14. Texas—Kemah, September 11. Wisconsin—Racine, September 22. Iowa—Sioux City, August 31. Michigan—Three Rivers, September 13. Ohio—Columbus, October 5. Illinois—Oak Park, October 17. Kentucky—Lexington, October 6. Tennessee—Elizabethton, October 19. Louisiana—Monroe, October 8. Mississippi—Deer Island, September 27. North Carolina—Raleigh, August 26. South Carolina—Charleston, September 17. Georgia—Atlanta, October 8. Yucatán—Chichén-Itzá, October 18.
Early dates of fall arrival are: Florida—Fort Myers, August 8. Yucatán—Chichén-Itzá, October 7. Honduras—Tela, September 8. Nicaragua—Río Escondido, September 2. Costa Rica—Bonilla, August 28. Panamá—Obaldia, September 15. Colombia—Gaira, September 11.
Banding records.—Banding provides a hint as to the life-span of the prothonotary warbler. One banded as an immature on June 16, 1940, in Convis township, Calhoun County, Mich., was color banded when it returned to the same place in 1942. Subsequently it was identified by the colored band on May 14, 1944, and May 10, 1945.
Casual records.—The prothonotary warbler was reported at Nassau, Bahamas, on August 29, 1898. It has been twice reported at Bermuda: one shot from a flock in the fall of 1874, and another specimen collected in November 1903. A single bird was observed at Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone Park, Wyo., on September 10, 1931. There are two records for Arizona. On May 1, 1884, a specimen was taken near Tucson at an altitude of 2,300 feet, the highest record of the species in the United States. Another specimen was taken September 8, 1924, at Cave Creek, 4 miles northeast of Paradise in the Chiricahua Mountains.
Egg dates. Florida: 8 records, April 18 to May 9; 5 records, April 28 to 30.
Illinois: 79 records, May 6 to June 21; 46 records, May 20 to June 4, indicating the height of the season.
Iowa: 56 records, May 15 to June 26; 36 records, May 27 to June 6 (Harris).
LYMNOTHLYPIS SWAINSONII (Audubon)
SWAINSON’S WARBLER
Contributed by Edward von Siebold Dingle
Plates 7—9
HABITS
“The history of our knowledge of Swainson’s Warbler,” write Brooks and Legg (1942), “is a curious one, falling into definite periods.” This bird was discovered in the spring of 1832 by the Rev. John Bachman “near the banks of the Edisto River, South Carolina.” His discovery of the bird is described as follows: “I was first attracted by the novelty of its notes, four or five in number, repeated at intervals of five or six minutes apart. These notes were loud, clear, and more like a whistle than a song. They resembled the sounds of some extraordinary ventriloquist in such a degree, that I supposed the bird much farther from me than it really was; for after some trouble caused by these fictitious notes, I perceived it near to me and soon shot it” (Audubon, 1841). Dr. Bachman took five specimens; then, up to the spring of 1884, Swainson’s warbler remained almost a lost species, for according to Brewster (1885a) there is no record of more than eight or nine birds being collected. Wayne, through collections and field work near Charleston, opened a productive 25-year period in the history of swainsonii, in which many valuable contributions were made by various observers. From 1910 to 1930 the name swainsonii was practically absent from the pages of current ornithological literature.
Brewster (1885a) has given us the best description of the bird’s haunts in the low country:
The particular kind of swamp to which he is most partial is known in local parlance as a “pine-land gall.” It is usually a depression in the otherwise level surface, down which winds a brook, in places flowing swiftly between well-defined banks, in others divided into several sluggish channels or spreading about in stagnant pools, margined by a dense growth of cane, and covered with lily leaves or other aquatic vegetation. Its course through the open pine-lands is sharply marked by a belt of hardwood trees nourished to grand proportions by the rich soil and abundant moisture. Beneath, crumbling logs cumber the ground, while an undergrowth of dogwood (Cornus florida), sassafras, viburnum, etc., is interlaced and made well-nigh impenetrable by a network of grapevines and greenbriar. These belts—river bottoms they are in miniature—rarely exceed a few rods in width; they may extend miles in a nearly straight line.
The writer has had a long acquaintance with Swainson’s warbler in the low country of Carolina. Except during September (fall migration) the birds were almost never seen out of sight of substantial growths of cane, even when the nests were built in bushes, low trees, or vines. This has been the experience of practically all observers and, as Brooks and Legg (1942) remark, “an idée fixe among ornithologists” existed; the familiar description of habitat by Brewster (1885a) became a dictum: “Briefly, four things seem indispensible to his existence, viz., water, tangled thickets, patches of cane, and a rank growth of semi-aquatic plants.”
Hence, the ornithological world received a surprise to learn that swainsonii was a summer resident and breeder in different localities of high altitude in the Appalachian Chain. Although several observers have found the bird nesting beyond the limits of the Coastal Plain, even in Piedmont territory, as La Prade (1922) did at 1,050 feet above sea level, it was E. A. Williams (1935) who first detected it in a truly mountainous terrain. During two successive summers he found birds near Tryon, N. C., “in open woods.”
Loomis (1887) was quite prophetic when, in recording a Swainson’s warbler from Chester, S. C., “in the heart of the Piedmont Region, one hundred and fifty miles from the coast,” he wrote: “It awakens the mind to the possibility of an Up-Country habitat, yet awaiting discovery, where the true centre of abundance will finally be located.”
The efforts of Brooks and Legg (1942) have shown Swainson’s warbler to be a locally common summer resident in south-central West Virginia up to an elevation of 2,000 feet above sea level; no positive evidence