A single specimen of this species was obtained by Mr. Salvin, at Choctum, in Guatemala.
Helminthophaga bachmani, Caban.
BACHMAN’S WARBLER.
Sylvia bachmani, Aud. Orn. Biog. II, 1834, 483, pl. clxxxiii. Sylvicola b. Rich. Vermivora b. Bon. Helinaia b. Aud. Syn. Birds Am. II, 1841, 93, pl. cviii.—Lembeye, Av. Cuba, 1850, 36, pl. vi. fig. 1. Helmitherus b. Bon. Helminthophaga b. Cab. Jour. III, 1855, 475 (Cuba, in winter).—Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 255; Rev. 175.—Gundlach, Cab. Jour. 1861, 326 (Cuba, rare); Repert. 65, 232.
Sp. Char. Above olive-green, as also are the sides of the head and neck. Hind head tinged with ash. A broad patch on the forehead, bordered behind by black; chin, stripe from this along the side of the throat, and the entire under parts, deep yellow. Throat and forepart of breast black. A patch on the inner web of the outer two tail-feathers near the end white. Length, 4.50; wing, 2.35; tail, 2.05. Female with merely a patch of dusky on the jugulum, and with the black bar on vertex obsolete.
Hab. Coast of South Carolina and Georgia; Cuba in winter.
Habits. Bachman’s Warbler is a comparatively new and but little known species of this interesting group. It was first discovered, July, 1833, by Rev. Dr. John Bachman, a few miles from Charleston, S. C., and in the same vicinity he afterwards discovered a few others of both sexes. He described it as a lively, active bird, gliding among the branches of the thick bushes, occasionally mounting on the wing and seizing insects in the air, in the manner of a Flycatcher. The individual first obtained was an old female which had, to all appearances, just reared a brood of young. With this partial exception, nothing is known in relation to its habits. As all the species of this genus, without any at present known exception, construct their nests upon the ground, it is a natural inference that it probably nests in a similar situation.
The Smithsonian Institution possesses but a single specimen of this bird, obtained near Charleston, S. C. It was not observed by any naturalist of the several governmental exploring expeditions, and, so far as we are at present informed, its only known places of abode are South Carolina and Cuba, where it is extremely rare. Its nest and eggs still remain unknown.
PLATE XI.