iSSg.l Brewster oii Swainson's Warbler. *l\ 



the species nearer Charleston than a place about six miles to the 

 westward and directly inland. At this point the rice plantations 

 begin. There may be no actual connection between these facts, 

 but certain topographical as well as floral characteristics of this 

 rice belt incline me to believe that its limits may be found to 

 correspond more or less closely with those of the summer dis- 

 tribution of Swainson's Warbler in South Carolina. 



While the facts already given prove incontestablv that the 

 present species may occur at times in dry scrubby woods, or 

 even in such open situations as orange groves, it certainly haunts 

 by preference the ranker growth of the swamps, to which, 

 indeed, it appears to be confined during the breeding season. 

 In South Carolina, as elsewhere, the term swamp is somewhat 

 general in application. As our Warbler is by no means equally 

 general in his tastes but, on the contrary, exceptionally fas- 

 tidious in the choice of a summer home, it is necessary to be 

 more explicit. The particular kind of swamp to which he is 

 most partial is known in local parlance as a -pine-land gall.' It 

 is usually a depression in the otherwise level surface, down 

 which winds a brook, in places flowing swiftly between well- 

 defined banks, in others divided into several sluggish channels or 

 spreading about in stagnant pools, margined by a dense growth 

 of cane, and covered with lily leaves or other aquatic vegetation. 

 Its course through the open pine-lands is sharply marked by a 

 belt of hardwood trees nourished to grand proportions by the 

 rich soil and abundant moisture. Beneath, crumbling logs 

 cumber the ground, while an under-growth of dogwood (Cornys 

 Jforida), sassafras, viburnum, etc., is interlaced and made well- 

 nigh impenetrable by a net-work of grapevines and greenbriar. 

 These belts — river bottoms they are in miniature — rarely exceed 

 a few rods in width ; they may extend miles in a nearly straight 

 line, but ordinarily the brooks which they conceal form short 

 tributaries of streams of larger size, which in turn soon mingle 

 their waters with those of neighboring rivers. More extensive 

 swamps, especially those bordering the larger streams, are sub- 

 ject to inundations which, bringing down deposits of alluvial soil, 

 bury up or sweep away the humbler plants, leaving a floor of 

 unsightly mud. interspersed with pools of stagnant water. Such 

 places answer well enough for the Prothonotary and Hooded 

 W r arblers. which, although essentially swamp-lovers, are not to 



