LAND BIRDS. CA^ 



sionally two or three may be seen feeding lazily among the opening buds 

 of chestnut, oak, and other forest trees, in company with numerous other 

 warblers, but it is rarely seen in large numbers and sometimes an entire 

 spring migration will pass without a glimpse of its flame-colored throat. 

 In the spring of 1909, however, it was unusually abundant during migration, 

 especially in the southeastern part of the state. Mr. J. Claire Wood found 

 it common in Wayne county from May 16 to 23, and on the 16th counted 

 260 Blackburnians among hosts of other migrants (Auk, XXVIII, 1911, 

 23). The species appears to be a summer resident, in very small numbers, 

 in most parts of the state, and at the north it unquestionably nests regu- 

 larly in the hemlock forests and probably also in most large mixed forests 

 of hardwoods and evergreens. 



It arrives from the south from the 1st to the 15th of May, rarely in 

 the last few days of April, usually during the second week in May. Mr. 

 N. A. Wood gives the average date of arrival, for twenty-five years, at 

 Ann Arbor as May 8. We have records of specimens killed on Spectacle 

 Reef Lighthouse, Lake Huron, May 11, 1888, May 17 and May 21, 1885, 

 May 19, 1893, May 22, 1890, May 23, 1897, and May 28, 1892. There is 

 a single record of one killed on Big Sable Light, Lake Superior, June 6, 

 1894. After nesting it begins to move southward early in August and 

 the movement continues, as shown by the records at lighthouses, all through 

 September and the early part of October, a specimen being recorded from 

 Spectacle Reef Light October 3, 1893 and others on September 24, 1892 

 and September 27, 1886. Unlike many of our warblers this species seems 

 to be rather less abundant in fall than in spring, but the young are quite 

 inconspicuous and doubtless many slip past without being recognized. 



The Blackburnian Warbler has been found in the nesting season at 

 various points in Michigan, but so far as we can learn the eggs have been 

 taken but twice. Near Kalamazoo J\Ir. B. F. Syke found two nests, one, 

 June 2, 1882, containing three eggs, placed thirty-five feet from the ground 

 in a tamarack, the other, June 5, 1881, placed on a small upward-angling 

 limb of a tamarack, four feet from the trunk and forty feet from the ground, 

 and containing four eggs and one of the Cowbird. The outside of this 

 nest consisted of tamarack twigs, held together with milkweed bark, and 

 it was lined with horse hair, fine roots and woody fibres. Both nests were 

 in tamarack swamps, but the usual location is said to be in hemlock trees, 

 at considerable heights, and the nest is said to be quite bulky and to consist 

 very largely of the down of the cattail. "The eggs are three to five, 

 greenish-white or very pale bluish-green, speckled or spotted, chiefly on 

 or round the larger end, with brown or reddish brown and lilac gray. They 

 average .68 by .50 inches" (Ridgway). The latest note on the nesting 

 of this species in Michigan comes from Alex. G. Ruthven, and forms part 

 of the manuscript report of Ruthven and Gaige on the Brown Lake region 

 of Dickinson county in the summer of 1909. It is as follows: "This 

 species was first noted July 17 in the hardwood forest. On this date a 

 small flock of males, eight in number, were observed feeding in the hem- 

 locks. They were all in the brilliant breeding plumage, but none were 

 heard singing. An hour later a nest of this species was located by seeing 

 a female carry food to her yoimg. The nest was about thirty feet from 

 the ground in a small hemlock in the hemlock and beech forest. It was 

 a loosely constructed affair made of small twigs and a few needles, and 

 fastened insecurely to the branch six feet or more from the trunk. It 



