FEATHERED GEMS 



never been able to surprise or photograph one on the 

 nest. 



A very singular structure is that of the Parula War- 

 bler. All the nests that I have found or known were 

 built in the pendent streamers of the gray usnea moss 

 which hangs in beards from trees. In the northern 

 States this moss is not plentiful, and where it does 

 occur the Parula is quite apt to colonize. I have found 

 such colonies of a few pairs, or a dozen, in some moss- 

 grown swamp, especially in larch or spruce trees. In 

 one place there was an old apple orchard with trees all 

 overgrown with streamers of this moss, and those 

 streamers held a number of sets of eggs. The warbler 

 does not appear to build a nest, but rather to scrape 

 out a hollow in a swaying beard of moss and lay the 

 eggs in this hanging basket. 



I must now tell of the nesting of our common summer 

 resident warblers, those whose nests we are most liable 

 to come across. The one whose nest is most often 

 found is the familiar Yellow Warbler, the kind which 

 is practically all yellow, and which is emphatically not 

 a wild Canary, though many people call it so. It 

 builds a rather bulky, soft nest of plant down and 

 fibers on a bush in a swamp, especially, in my experi- 

 ence, a willow bush, or near the end of a low branch 

 of some small maple or bushy clump in the garden. 

 A friend of mine showed me the nest of a pair in a lilac 

 bush, right under his bedroom window. A wet bushy 

 pasture is also a good place to search, and in such an 



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