Worm-Eating Warbler {Helmitheros vermivorus) 



Range : Breeds mainly in the Carolinian Zone from southern Iowa, north- 

 ern Illinois, eastern and western Pennsylvania, and the Hudson and Connecticut 

 River valleys south to southern Missouri, Tennessee, Virginia, and mountains of 

 South Carolina; winters from Chiapas to Panama, in Cuba and the Bahamas. 



He who would make the acquaintance of the worm-eating warbler must 

 seek it in its own chosen home, far from which it never strays. It is a bird of 

 shaded hillside and dark thickets along watercourses. Though nimble in its 

 movements and an active insect hunter, it is an unobtrusive little warbler, garbed 

 in very modest colors, and is likely wholly to escape the notice of the unob- 

 servant. 



There seems to be an unusual degree of jealousy among the males, and a 

 pair, the hunting and the hunted, are often seen pursuing a rapid, zigzag flight 

 through trees and bushes. I imagine that in such cases the pursuing male, whose 

 angry notes show how much in earnest he is, is asserting the right of domain 

 over his own hunting grounds, and driving from his preserves an intruder. 



Like several of our terrestrial warblers, the worm-eater has caught the 

 trick of walking, perhaps borrowing it from his thrush neighbors, and he rarely 

 or never hops. In his case the term ''terrestrial" must be modified by the state- 

 ment that to a certain extent he is a connecting link between the arboreal mem- 

 bers of the family, as the black-throated green and Tennessee, which descend 

 to the ground only casually, and such species as the Connecticut and the Swain- 

 son, which seek their food chiefly on the ground. Of the musical ability of the 

 worm-eating warbler little is to be said save that his song is so very feeble that 

 one must listen carefully to hear it at all, and that it much resembles that of 

 our familiar "chippy" when heard a long distance off. This warbler nests on 

 the ground, often on a hillside or in a shallow depression, and the pairs seem 

 so much attached to their old home that they may confidently be looked for in 

 the same place year after year. 



675 



