434 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



grown with barberry and juniper. In the southern states it is found 

 principally on sunny hillsides covered with bushes and saplings. Near 

 Washington Doctor Coues found it in rather scrubby, hilly, open localities. 



The nests are usually placed in barberries or low hickories, dogwood, 

 scrub pines or cedar bushes from i to 5 feet from the ground. Mr Stone 

 describes the nests he found near Branchport as follows: ' I know of 

 but three localities where this warbler finds suitable haunts, and but one 

 pair in each locality. Here t'ley are found in the same surroundings of 

 bushes, saplings and briers which they prefer in other parts of the country, 

 nesting in close proximity to the Chestnut-sided warblers. The nests 

 are attached to forks of bushes from 2 to 3 feet from the ground and are 

 compact and firmly woven, thick-walled structures of grayish colored 

 shreds of weed bark, narrow dry grasses, fine round reddish grass stems, 

 and lined with black horse hair, the outside resembling considerably nests 

 of the Yellow warbler. Two of the four nests that I have found each 

 contained 4 eggs on June 1 and 2, and two others had 1 and 3 eggs respec- 

 tively on June 4. One nest was placed in a hazel bush surrounded by a 

 dense growth of shrubbery close to a bubbling brook; another was in an 

 elderberry bush in the midst of a brush lot." 



The eggs are white or greenish white in ground color, speckled, spotted 

 and blotched with dark umber, reddish brown, purplish and lilac shell 

 markings, often with a well-formed wreath about the larger end. The 

 dimensions average .64 by .49 inches. 



The song of this species is " a lisping trill much like that of the Parula 

 warbler in general character " but with a thin, wiry quality which Doctor 

 Coues has compared to "the plaint of a mouse with a toothache," surely 

 an extremely individual performance which, when once heard, will certainly 

 distinguish this bird from all the other warblers. 



