WESTERN PALM WARBLER 439 



He adds : "Our Prairie Warbler of Dade and Monroe Counties, Fla., 

 seems rather out of place as a breeding bird in our hardwood ham- 

 mocks and amongst the mangrove Keys." 



The 1931 A. O. U. Check-List states that it breeds "in mangrove 

 swamps on the coast of Florida from New Smyrna and Anclote Key 

 southward." Arthur H. Howell (1932) says of it: 



The Florida Prairie Warbler lives in a habitat very different from that chosen 

 by its northern relative (discolor), being almost wholly restricted to tracts of 

 mangroves bordering the coastal sloughs or marshes. At New Smyrna, R. J. 

 Longstreet found several nests in small mangrove bushes growing on the borders 

 of a marsh. One observed May 3, 1925, partly finished, contained one egg on 

 May 16, but later was deserted. The nest was composed of grayish colored plant 

 fibers, shreds of bark, and pieces of twine, and was lined with very fine shreds 

 of palmetto fiber of a brownish color, and a few feathers. E. J. Court collected a 

 set of 3 eggs on Palm Key, near Cape Sable, March 29, 1925. Nevin J. Nicholson 

 reports a nest in process of construction in the top of a 20-foot mangrove tree 

 at Fort Lauderdale, June 6, 1925. D. J. Nicholson noted a nest at Eifers, June 

 16, 1929, 11 feet up in a mangrove, and a newly made nest at the same place, 

 May 10, 1931. 



On Anclote Key, May 21, 1918, we heard a dozen or more of these Warblers 

 singing, and collected several specimens in breeding condition. The birds are 

 rather shy during the nesting season ; the males sing from near tops of small 

 mangrove trees and manage to keep well hidden in the foliage. The song sounds 

 to my ears essentially like that of the northern birds — a series of drawled, shrill- 

 ing notes on an ascending chromatic scale, uttered rather rapidly, with the bill 

 pointing nearly straight upward. * * * 



Examination of the stomachs of 10 specimens taken in Florida showed the 

 food of this species to consist largely of moths and their larvae, beetles, bugs, 

 flies, and spiders. Grasshoppers, tree-hoppers, ants and other Hymenoptera, 

 and scale insects were eaten in smaller quantities, and one bird had picked up 

 a fragment of a small bivalve. 



Charles E. Doe has sent me the data for three sets of eggs of the 

 Florida prairie warbler, collected by him on the w^est coast of Florida ; 

 the nests were all in red mangroves, all over water, and from 6 to 10 

 feet above it. 



The measurements of 16 eggs average 16.3 by 12.0 millimeters; the 

 eggs showing the four extremes measure 16.8 by 12.1, 16.2 by 12.7, 15.9 

 by 11.8, and 16.0 by 11.1 millimeters (Harris). 



DENDROICA PALMARUM PALMARUM (Gmelin) 



WESTERN PALM WARBLER 



Plate 56 



HABITS 



Charles Lucien Bonaparte (1832) remarks: "This is one of those 

 lively, transient visitants, which, coming in spring from warmer 

 regions, pass through the middle states, on their way to still colder 



