BIRDS OF EASTERN MASSACHUSETTS. 101 



delighted gaze the eggs. They were the first I had ever 

 seen, and I was much pleased. Full well was I now repaid 

 for all my former searching through swampy thickets and 

 briery hedges for this bird's nest. 



" The locality chosen was within a few feet of a lane where 

 an occasional pedestrian passed, and within eight rods of a 

 travelled road ! These facts are surprising, inasmuch as 

 the general habitat of this bird is in lonely, swampy places, 

 remote from man and his ways. About twenty rods away 

 was a swampy thicket ; from this the land sloped gradually 

 up to the spot where the nest was placed. There was, 

 apparently, no attempt at concealment whatever ; to be 

 sure, at the time of discovery it was partly overshadowed 

 by some ferns and rank weeds ; but these must have 

 grown after the nest was built, and it was plainly percep- 

 tible to a person standing upright. It was placed upon 

 a small bit of green moss, without the slightest depression 

 of the ground ; indeed, the spot, if anything, was slightly 

 elevated above the surrounding surface. Over all waved 

 the branches of the pretty little elm upon which I first saw 

 the bird. There were a few scattering oak and elm trees 

 in the immediate vicinity. 



" The nest is composed outwardly of large oak-leaves, of 

 the previous year, and grapevine bark, and is lined, not 

 very smoothly, with fine grass and a few horse-hairs. It 

 is large for the size of the bird, quite deep, and slightly 

 smaller in diameter at the top than in the middle. The 

 whole structure is not nearly as neat as would be expected 

 from so small and elegant a bird, and reminds one strik- 

 ingly of the nest of the Maryland Yellow-throat. The 

 dimensions are: Depth externally 3.15 inches, internally 

 2.20. Diameter internally in the middle 2.25, at the top 

 1.90; diameter externally 3.50. 



" The eggs are four in number, very prettily marked, 

 and proportionate to the size of the bird. No. 1 is per- 



