BAY-BREASTED WARBLER 381 



served flying directly across the Gulf from Yucatan to the Gulf States. 

 Dr. Chapman (1907) says: 



Oo the way to its summer home, the bird shuns Mexico, the West Indies, 

 and the United States south of Virginia, east of the Allegheny Mountains ; the 

 great bulk passes north through the Mississippi Valley, west to eastern Texas 

 (Corpus Christi, Port Bolivar), Missouri (Freistart), and Iowa (Grinnell) ; 

 casual or accidental in South Dakota (May 1888), Montana (Big Sandy, May 

 24, 1903), and Alberta (Medicine Hat). * * * Although close observation 

 will reveal the presence of Bay-breasts during both the spring and fall migra- 

 tions, they are generally to be classed among the rarer Warblers the mere sight 

 of which is stimulating. Occasionally, however, the weather so affects their 

 migration that they come en masse and for a brief period are actually abundant. 



William Brewster (1906), referring to the Cambridge region of 

 Massachusetts, writes: "During the spring flight northward, which 

 passes late in May, they usually occur singly and in dense woods, 

 especially such as consist largely of white pines, hemlocks or other 

 coniferous trees. A remarkable exception to this rule happened in 

 1872. On May 26 of this year several birds were seen in the heart 

 of Cambridge, and on the following morning I found upwards of 

 forty, most of them females, feeding in the tops of some large oaks." 

 This is about as far east as the bay-breasted warbler usually comes 

 in Massachusetts; it is an exceedingly rare bird in the southeastern 

 corner of the state; I can count on the fingers of one hand all that 

 I have ever seen there. Most of the birds probably pass up the Con- 

 necticut Vallej', or farther westward. 



Nesting. — It was while I was visiting with Mr. and Mrs. Richard 

 B. Harding at their summer camp on the shore of Lake Asquam, 

 N. H., that I saw my first and only nest of the bay-breasted warbler. 

 The nest was placed on a horizontal branch of a white pine standing on 

 the edge of a clearing in heavy mixed woods, within 20 yards of a 

 cottage, and it was about 30 feet above the ground. On June 5, 1930, 

 the nest was not quite finished. On June 8, Mr. Harding climbed 

 the tree and found that the nest contained two eggs, but on the six- 

 teenth the nest was empty, and was taken. Mrs. Harding described 

 it in a letter to me as being made largely of coarse, dried grass stalks, 

 with a few hemlock twigs and a piece of string — a loosely built struc- 

 ture, with straws and twigs protruding from it on all sides. The 

 inner wall of the nest was made of dried grasses and pine needles, 

 with a thin lining of fine, black rootlets and horsehairs. 



Miss Cordelia J. Stan wood has sent me some extensive notes on the 

 home life of this warbler, in which she describes the building of the 

 nest as follows : "First a few culms of hay were placed in the fork 

 of several twigs on a flat limb ; next fine spruce twigs were anchored 

 to the various points of attachment, and the nest shaped of these. The 



