''^'LIIRARYla 



THE OTTAWA f(ATURALIST. 



Vol. XVIII. OTTAWA, JUNE, 1904. No. 3 



NESTING OF SOME CANADIAN WARBLERS. 



By Wm. L. Kells. (Third paper.) 

 THE MOURNING WARBLER. 



{^Geothlypis Philadelphia.) 



The mourning warbler though not abundant in any district, 

 is yet pretty widely distributed over the province of Ontario, as 

 well as other divisions of eastern Canada, but it is among the last 

 of the family to announce its vernal advent amid the wild scenery of 

 its summer haunts. Usually, when the expanding buds of the 

 lower underwood are bursting into leaves; when the yellow bloom 

 of the leathervvood scents the spring-time air, and the virgin soil 

 of the forests being variegated by the early wild flowers of the 

 season ; the observer of bird migrations, if in the vicinity of its 

 chosen summer home, will be enabled by the sound of iis song, to 

 add to his list, this species as among the more recent arrivals from 

 the sunny south ; but as the month of July advances, its nesting 

 period is over ; its notes for the season are silent; and the bird itself 

 appears to be among the first of the members of its family to 

 take its departure from the uncultivated scenery of its summer 

 home ; and begin its aerial voyage towards its tropical winter 

 residence in the regions of Central America. Here it enjoys the 

 pleasure of existence amid perpetual sumaner, during that portion 

 of the year when its Canadian father-land feels the chilly breath 

 of the ice king, is covered with a mantle of snow, and swept by 

 the wild storms of winter. In March it begins its northward 

 journey, but two months pass away before it reaches the terminus 

 of its winged voyage in the regions of its northern range, and 

 summer home, and here begins again one ot the chief objects of 

 its migration movements /. e. the propagation of its species, and 

 when the period in which this can only be done is over the impulses 



