380 BULLETIN 2 3, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



DENDROICA CASTANEA (Wilson) 



BAY-BREASTED WARBLER 



Plate 47 



HABITS 



Bartram's "Little Chocolate-breasted Titmouse" was given the 

 above name by Wilson (1832), based on a specimen taken in eastern 

 Pennsylvania. Both he and Audubon considered it a rare species and 

 had little to say about it. This is not strange, for they probably 

 never saw it on its breeding grounds and probably overlooked it on 

 its rather rapid migrations, or perhaps confused it with others in 

 the host of migrants. To see the bay-breasted warbler to advantage 

 one must visit the coniferous forests of northern New England and 

 southern Canada east of the Great Plains ; here it is often an abundant 

 bird, and in some places it is the commonest of the warblers. 



In Maine, according to Ora W. Knight (1908), "the species is rare 

 nnd local, even in migration, and as a summer resident is chiefly 

 confined to the deeper wilder sections of the State within the Canadian 

 fauna. * * * The few pair that remain to nest in southern Penob- 

 scot County are to be found in the low, rather swampy maple and 

 birch growth, mixed with firs and spruces. * * * j^ northern 

 Maine I have met with the species in the rather swampy evergreen 

 or mixed growth about the ponds and lakes and judge these localities 

 are their favorite haunts." 



Of its range in New Hampshire, Dr. Glover M. Allen (1903) 

 writes : "In the White Mountains and northward it is a fairly common 

 summer resident mainly of the upper Canadian zone. The range of 

 this species in summer overlaps that of the Black-poll AVarbler for 

 about 1,000 feet, and extends below it to nearly an equal amount. 

 Thus one finds breeding birds at an altitude of from 1,800 feet in rich, 

 damp coniferous woods on southern exposures, up to about 4,000 feet 

 among the small balsam timber." 



Spring. — ^How the bay-breasted warbler reaches the coast of Texas 

 from its winter home in Colombia and Panama seems to be unknown. 

 Alexander F. Skutch tells me that it is perhaps only an accidental 

 transient in Central America north of the Isthmus of Panama. It 

 seems to be unknowm in Mexico, but George G. Williams (19'±o) lists 

 it among the warblers that occur regularly and frequently along the 

 coast of Texas each spring. I saw it in the wave of migrating birds 

 that I observed on an island in Galveston Bay on May 4, 1923. In 

 order to avoid Mexico, it may fly partially across the Gulf of Mexico, 

 or perhaps it may fly only along the coastline. It has also been ob- 



