CHESTNUT-SIDED WARBLER 369 



down to 1200 feet, and it occurs up to 4800 feet where the habitat is 

 suitable. Mountain laurel thickets offer a favorite nesting place, and 

 dead chestnut trees are often used as singing places." Referring to 

 northeastern Georgia, Thomas D. Burleigh (1927a) writes: "I have 

 noted a few singing males as low as 3500 feet, but it is only above an 

 elevation of 4000 feet that these birds occur in any numbers. Within 

 a few hundred yards of the top of Brasstown Bald the south slope is 

 covered with small stunted oaks that are few enough in number to 

 encourage a thick undergrowth of laurel and huckleberry bushes. In 

 this limited area the Chestnut-sided Warblers are actually plentiful, 

 and are among the few birds that can be found breeding there." 



Spring. — According to Dr. Chapman (1907), "the Chestnut-sided 

 Warbler passes through eastern Mexico and the Gulf States from 

 northwestern Florida to eastern Texas. It is casual in southern Flor- 

 ida and the Bahamas." 



M. A. Frazar (1881) saw "quite a number" migrating across the 

 Gulf of Mexico, when his ship was about 30 miles south of the Missis- 

 sippi delta. In the great wave of migrating warblers and other small 

 birds that I saw on the islands in Galveston Bay, Texas, on May 4, 

 1923, chestnut-sided warblers were much in evidence, as they generally 

 are in all of these transient hosts ; here they were buffeted about by a 

 northerly gale and were seeking shelter behind every little eminence 

 or clump of bushes, to rest before struggling again against the wind. 

 The spring migration along the eastern route seems to be mainly 

 along the Allegheny Mountains, or near them. E. S. Dingle tells me 

 that he has but one record for coastal or southern South Carolina, 

 April 24, 1929; and Arthur T. Wayne (1910) does not include it in 

 the birds of that State. 



According to Dr. Chapman's (1907) data, nearly a month (25 days, 

 to be exact) elapses between the average dates of arrival at Atlanta, 

 Ga., and arrival at Scotch Lake, New Brunswick. And on the interior 

 route it seems to take just a month for the birds to travel from south- 

 ern Texas to Aweme, Manitoba. 



Nesting. — My local experience with the nesting of the chestnut- 

 sided warbler dates back to the old "ministerial road" in Rehoboth, 

 Mass., a typical locality in which to find the nests of this warbler. 

 This narrow, neglected, country road skirted the border of the village 

 cemetery, with an open field on the other side, while between the stone 

 wall that bordered the field and the road was a long narrow strip of 

 very small trees and underbrush, mainly hazel bushes. Along the 

 quarter-mile stretch of this road we could always count on finding 

 several pairs of this warbler nesting in the hazel bushes, generally at 

 heights of 2 or 3 feet in the thickets of small bushes ; one nest was as 

 low as 14 and one only 18 inches above the ground. We found 



