250 NORTH AMEiaCAN BIRDS. 



liut this lias never lieeu L-oiitirmed. He regarded it as a silent bird, and 

 Mr. Audubon does not conijilinient its \"Ocal powers. Yet it is a pleasing 

 and varied, if not a powerful singer. Mr. Trippe speaks of its song as faint 

 and lisping, and as consisting of four or five syllables. 



Xone of our birds, l.)efore its history was well known, lias been made the 

 occasion for more ill-founded conjectures than the Black-Poll. Wilson was at 

 fault as to its song and its Southern breeding, and imagined it would be found 

 to nest in high tree-tops, so as not to be readily detected. Nuttall, on the 

 other hand, predicted that it would be found to breed on the ground, after the 

 manner of the Mniotiltac, or else in hollow trees Mr. Audubon, finding its 

 nest in Labrador, indulges in flights of fancy over its supposed rarity, which, 

 seen in the light of our present knowledge, as an abundant bird in the local- 

 ity where his e.xpedition was fitted out, are somewhat amusing. That nest 

 was in a thicket of low trees, contained four eggs, and was placed about i'uur 

 feet from the ground, in the fork of a small branch, close to the main stem 

 of a fir-tree. Its internal diameter was two inches, and its depth one and 

 a half. It was formed, externally, of green and wliite moss and lichens, in- 

 termingled with coarse dry grasses. It was lined, with great care, with tine, 

 dry, dark-colored mosses, resembling horse-hair, with a thick bed of soft 

 feathers of ducks and willow grouse. 



In passing north, the.se Warblers, says Audubon, reach Louisiana early in 

 February, where they glean their food among the upper branches of the trees 

 overhanging the water. He never met with them in maritime parts of the 

 South, yet they are abundant in tlie State of Xew Jersey near the sea-shore. 

 As they pass northward their habits seem to undergo a change, and to jjar- 

 take more of the nature of Creepers. They move along the trunks and lower 

 Umbs, searching in their chinks for larva; and piipaj. . Later in the season, in 

 moi'e northern localities, we again find them expert flycatchers, darting after 

 insects in all directions, cha.sing them while on the wing, and making the 

 clicking sound of the true Flycatcher. 



They usually i-eai-h JIassachusetts aftc^r the middle of May, and their stay 

 varies from one, usually, to nearly four weeks, especially when their insect- 

 food is abundant. In our orchards they feed eagerly ujion the caiiker-worui, 

 which is just appearing as they pass through. 



Around East^jort and at Grand Menan they confine themselves to the thick 

 swampy groves of evergreens, where they bi-eed on the edges of the woods. 

 All of tlie several nests I met with in these localities were buQt in thick 

 spruce-trees, about eight feet from the ground, and in the midst of foliage so 

 dense as hardly to be noticeable. Yet the nests were large and bulky for so 

 small a bird, being nearly five inches in diameter and three in height. The 

 cavity is, however, small, being only two inches in diameter, and one and a 

 fourtli to one and a half in deptli. They were constructed chiefly of a 

 collection of slender young ends of branches of jiines, firs, and spnice, 

 interwoven with and tied together by long branches of the CUulouia lichens, 



