BACHMAN'S WARBLER 67 



VERMIVORA BACHMANU (Audubon) 

 BACHMAN'S WARBLER 

 Contributed by Edwabd von Siebold Dingle 



HABITS 



Bacliman'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 hachmanii 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." 



