1902] Kells Nesting of some Canadian Warblers. 145 



of bird lite and avifaunian melody, its nest may be looked for. It 

 is well known to every field ornithologist that each species of the 

 warblers has its peculiar haunts, that only a few of them inter- 

 mingle in the same society, and when they come in contact they 

 evince such jealous rivalry towards each other as soon causes the 

 different species to understand that their ways are not in harmony, 

 and that there can be no special love between them. Sometimes, 

 however, in a small circuit, where the conditions are favourable, 

 a number of species may be heard, in the early summer season, 

 intermingling their melodies. In the same thick underwood, of 

 but a few acres in extent, may be found the nesting homes of the 

 chestnut-sided warbler, the redstart, the black-and-white warbler, 

 the black-throated blue warbler, the oven-bird, the Canadian 

 warbler, and the mourning vvarbler, as well as other members of 

 the family ; but while the nests of some of these will be found 

 placed in the low underwood, in trees at various elevations from 

 the ground, or among the thick vines, others will be found sunk in 

 the earth or in the cavities of low banks or among the roots of fallen 

 trees. So in the same swampy woodland may be found the nests 

 of the bay-breasted warbler, the water-thrush and the myrtle bird, 

 and the former and the latter meet on common ground and may 

 often be observed gleaning their insect food in the tops of the 

 same trees, and at similar elevation, but the latter species ap- 

 pears to select a more lowly and considerably different situation 

 for a nesting-place than that of the bay-breasted species. In all 

 my wildwood rambles and oological researches, I have found but 

 few nests of the myrtle warbler and collected but one set of its 

 eggs, and I believe that the pleasure of finding the nest and add- 

 ing its eggs to their collection, has been the experience of but 

 few. 



On the i8th of June, 1882, I discovered, for the first time in 

 my experience, a nest of the myrtle warbler. It was in a low, black 

 ash timbered swamp, where there was an intermingling of other 

 soft-woods and conifers, near where I had found the nest of a bay- 

 breas'ed warbler the year before, and of whose nest I was again 

 in search, when I espied in a low balsam, about four feet from the 

 ground, a nest with the mother bird seated upon it. At first sight 

 this avifaunian cradle, in situation, material and construction. 



