338 BULLETIN 20 3, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Blackburnian seems to be a doubly appropriate name, for its upper 

 parts are largely black and its throat burns like a brilliant orange 

 flame amid the dark foliage of the hemlocks and spruces. A glimpse 

 of such a brilliant gem, flashing out from its sombre surroundings, 

 is fairly startling. 



Throughout most of the eastern half of the United States the Black- 

 burnian warbler is known only as a migrant, mainly from the Missis- 

 sippi Valley eastward. Its summer range extends from Manitoba 

 eastward to Nova Scotia, from Minnesota to New England, and south- 

 ward in the Allegheny Mountains to South Carolina and Georgia, in 

 the LoAver Canadian and Upper Transition Zones. For its breeding 

 haunts it prefers the deep evergreen woods where spruces, firs, and 

 hemlocks predominate, or often swampy woods where the black 

 spruces are thickly draped with Usnea^ offering concealment for birds 

 and nests. 



In Massachusetts, which is about the southern limit of its breed- 

 ing range in New England, William Brewster (1888) describes its 

 haunts at Winchendon as follows: "On both high and low ground, 

 wherever there were spruces in any numbers, whether by themselves 

 or mixed with other trees, and also to some extent where the growth 

 was entirely of hemlocks, the Blackburnian Warbler was one of the 

 most abundant and characteristic summer birds, in places even out- 

 numbering the Black-throated Green Warbler, although it shmmed 

 strictly the extensive tracts of white pines which D. virens seemed to 

 find quite as congenial as any of the other evergreens." 



Gerald Thayer wrote to Dr. Chapman (1907) that at Monadnock, 

 New Hampshire, it is "a very common summer resident. It is one 

 of the four deep- wood Warblers of this region, the other three being 

 the Black-throated Blue, the Northern Parula and the Canada. While 

 all the other summer Warblers of Monadnock seem better pleased with 

 various sorts of lighter timber, these four are commonest in the small 

 remaining tracts of primeval woodland, and in the heaviest and oldest 

 second growth. But despite this general community of habit, each 

 of the four has marked minor idiosyncrasies. The Blackburnian 

 favors very big trees, particularly hemlocks, and spends most of its 

 life high above the gi'ound." 



Professor Maurice Brooks (1936) says that Blackburnian warblers 

 "are thoroughly at home in the deciduous second-growth timber that 

 in so many places has replaced the coniferous forest. They range down 

 to elevations of 2,500 feet in northern West Virginia. Here they as- 

 sociate with Golden-winged and Chestnut-sided warblers. A favorite 

 perch is on some chestnut tree that has been killed by the blight." 

 Rev. J. J. Murray tells me that, in Virginia, it is "common above 1,500 

 feet, wherever there are conifers." And Thomas D. Burleigh (1941) 



