Life Histories of North American Wood Warblers, Part One and Part Two. Arthur Cleveland Bent
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 31⁄2 inches; its greatest breadth is about 4 inches, its width in the opposite direction being about 3 inches. The cavity is about 11⁄2 inches deep and 11⁄2 × 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.
The second nest, which was within one hundred yards of the first one, was built in a bunch of canes (Arundinaria tecta), and supported by a palmetto leaf. This nest was three feet above the ground, in a comparatively dry situation, and contained four pure white eggs in an advanced stage of incubation. * * *
The two nests are similar, being constructed of fine grass, cane leaves, and other leaves, the latter skeletonized. The second nest, taken April 17, is 61⁄2 inches high, 6 inches wide, 2 inches wide at rim, and 2 inches deep. It is composed almost entirely of dead cane leaves, a little Spanish moss (Tillandsia usneoides), and a few skeletonized leaves. * * *
The female is a very close sitter; indeed so close that I found it necessary to touch her before she would leave the nest. This habit was the same in both females.
The other nests were in low bushes, vines, or canes.
During that same year Embody (1907) discovered Bachman’s warbler breeding in Logan County, Ky., and later Holt (1920) found it nesting in Autauga County, Ala. The localities in which these birds were breeding and the locations of the nests were not very different from those described above by Wayne.
Eggs.—The egg of Bachman’s warbler is ovate and pure white, and usually glossy. The only spotted egg on record is one of a set described by Holt (1920) as follows: “The nest contained four eggs, three of them pure, glossy white, the other with