New Bird

Ornithologists generally do not like to shoot birds, but that is the best way to collect specimens, so they harden their hearts for the sake of science. One day Ornithologist Karl W. Haller of Bethany College was out in the wooded hills of West Virginia's Eastern Panhandle. He had a gun; he was looking for warblers.He heard one--a quick, burred trill. He spotted the warbler, stopped the song with a shot.

When Haller picked up the crumpled bit of down and feathers, he saw that it was a male, with a yellow throat with raw sienna, a yellowish olive patch on the back, a brownish hue on the flanks, a gull-blue back. He had never seen a warbler quite like it before. Later he bagged a female of the same species, sent both birds to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, which, he knew, had specimens of every known bird in the U.S. But the Smithsonian birdmen could find nothing to match Haller's warblers.

Last week the Smithsonian's Curator of Birds Herbert Friedmann announced that a new species had been discovered, first new bird found in the U.S. proper for 21 years. Name: Dendroica potomac Haller. Dr. Friedmann could not understand where the species had been hiding all this time. Next spring he plans to get troops of amateur bird-snoopers to help him find out.

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