370 BULLETIN 203, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



numerous nests elsewhere along the edges of country roads, in old neg- 

 lected pastures, in sproutlands, and about the borders of woodlands, 

 where there was suitable shrubbery. Fully 90 percent of the nests 

 were in hazels, but occasional ones were found in huckleberry bushes, 

 blackberry tangles, hardbacks, or small saplings. 



Most of the nests are flimsy affairs and loosely built, the walls so 

 thin that daylight shows through them in one or more places; but 

 some are fairly compactly woven. Four nests before me vary con- 

 siderably in size and construction. The smallest and most compact 

 measures about 2^4 by 2i/^ inches in outside diameter, is about 2 inches 

 high externally, and the inner cavity is about 1% wide and 1% inches 

 deep. The largest nest measures 3i/^ by 4 inches in outside diameter, 

 but has about the same height and inside dimensions as the smallest 

 nest and differs from the others in having the whole upper part, or 

 nest proper, made entirely of the finest grasses and extremely fine 

 reddish brown fibers built on a foundation of the usual materials. 

 The other nests are intermediate in size and shape, and are made of 

 both coarse and fine strips of inner bark from cedars or grapevines, 

 weed stems shredded finely, fine grasses, other plant fibers, and some 

 little pieces of plant down ; they are lined with very fine grasses, and 

 sometimes also with a little horsehair or cowhair. 



I saw two nests in the woods near Asquam Lake, N. H., where the 

 black-throated blue warblers were breeding (a location described 

 under that species) ; one of these was built in a mountain laurel bush 

 after the manner of the black-throated blue, and the other was in a 

 crotch in a bunch of maple sprouts in an open clearing. The nests 

 found by Mr. Burleigh (1927a) in northeastern Georgia were all 

 "within two feet of the ground, two being in laurels and one in a 

 huckleberry bush." Some observers have referred to the nests of the 

 chestnut-sided warbler as being firmly, compactly, or strongly built, 

 but my experience usually agrees with that of Mr. Burleigh, who says : 

 "The nests were alike in construction, and distinct enough not to be 

 confused with those of any other species found here, being loosely 

 and somewhat shabbily built." Nests have been reported by others 

 as located in hazel, huckleberry, raspberry, blackberiy, blueberry, 

 barberry, viburnum, spirea, rhododendron, and azalea bushes, and in 

 saplings of oak, maple, birch, beech, and hornbeam. Probably many 

 others might be added to the list. 



Mr. Forbush (1929) gives the following account of nest -building, 

 as observed by F. H. Mosher : 



The female did all the actual work. She laid straws and plant fibers in a fork 

 of an arrow-wood bush, then went to a tent caterpillar colony and tearing off 

 some of the web bound the forking branches about with it, thus tying them 

 together and forming a deep cup-like framework for the habitation ; she also 

 bound the foundation firmly in place with more of the same web, then brought 



