100 



LAND-BIRDS AND GAME-BIRDS 



(b). The nest is globular, with an entrance on the side, and 

 is composed principally of hanging mosses. It is usuall}^ 

 placed in the woods, twenty or more feet from the ground, at 

 the end of a bough of some hard-wood tree or evergreen. It 

 usually contains four or five freshly laid eggs in early June, 

 which average about -62 X '48 of an inch, and are white (or 

 cream-tinted) w-ith spots and confluent blotches of reddish- 

 brown and lilac, chiefly about the crown. 



(c) . The ' ' Blue Yellow-backs" are summer-residents through- 



rig. 4. Blue Yellow-backed Warbler (^) . 



out the eastern United States, more commonly in Northern 

 Maine and New Hampshire than in Massachusetts, where 

 onl}'- a few breed, chiefly, probably, in the valleys of the 

 Connecticut and Nashua Rivers. Near Boston they are ex- 

 tremely rare in summer, but are generally common in the sec- 

 ond and third weeks of May and September, during their 

 migrations, being, however, sometimes rare, and sometimes 

 extremely abundant. I can in no way, I believe, better de- 

 scribe their habits than by detailing the observations which I 

 made upon them this spring (1875), when they were very nu- 

 merous in my immediate neighborhood. They came on the elev- 

 enth of May, and did not wholly disappear until the twenty- 

 second of that month, after which I saw none, except a few in 



