BLACKBURNIAN WARBLER 345 



a similar song, recorded at Jaffrey, N. H., May 30, 1910, was serwee 

 seinoee serwee serwee serwip, with the emphasis on the wip. At New 

 London, N. H., in June, 1931, where this was perhaps the commonest 

 of the warblers, I was particularly impressed by the variability of 

 both the songs. In some, the very high and attenuated notes were 

 so short that for some time I failed to recognize their source. One 

 bird sang cMddle chiddle chiddle chick-a chick-a cheet. At Hog 

 Island in Muscongus Bay, Maine, in June, 1936, I heard a song of 

 which only a sweet weet weet weet weet carried to a distance, but of 

 which, heard near at hand, the end was found to be a short, confused 

 succession of high-pitched, dry notes concluding with a very high, 

 short note. This was, I think, the most pleasing performance I have 

 ever heard from this species." 



Mrs. Nice (1932) mentions three different songs; the commonest 

 and shortest, like the parula's in form, lasts for one second and is 

 given at intervals of 71/2 to 10 seconds ; the rarest and longest lasts for 

 two seconds and is given at intervals of 10 or 14 seconds. 



A. D. DuBois tells me that the Blackburnian warbler "has a song 

 not unlike that of the dickcissel in its general form, although much 

 subdued in volume." Gerald Thayer wrote to Dr. Chapman (1907) 

 of two or more different songs of this warbler, and says : 



Its voice is thin, but, unlike the Parula's, exquisitely smooth, in all the many 

 variations of its two (or more) main songs. * * * Even the tone quality 

 is not quite constant, for though it never, in my experience, varies toward 

 huskiness, it does occasionally range toward full-voiced richness. Thus I have 

 heard a Blackburnian that began his otherwise normal song with two or three 

 clear notes much like those of the most full and smooth-voiced performance of 

 the American Redstart's, and another that began so much like a Nashville that 

 I had to hear him several times, near by, to be convinced that there was not a 

 Nashville chiming in. Sometimes, again, tone and delivery are varied toward 

 excessive languidness ; and sometimes, contrariwise, toward sharp, wiry 

 "thinness." 



Eneinies. — Dr. Friedmann (1929) calls the Blackburnian warbler 

 "a very uncommon victim of the Cowbird." Dr. Merriam (1885) 

 records a nest of this warbler that was 84 feet from the ground, con- 

 taining four warbler's eggs and one of the cowbird, of which Fried- 

 mann remarks : "This is probably the altitude record for a Cowbird's 

 egg, bettering by some twenty feet my highest record at Ithaca, a 

 Cowbird's egg in a nest of a Pine Warbler about sixty feet up." 



Harold S. Peters (1936) records two species of lice, Menacanthus 

 chrysophaeurti (Kellogg) and Ricinus pallens (Kellogg), and one 

 mite, Proctophyllodes sp., as external parasites of this warbler. 



Field mofrks. — The adult male Blackburnian warbler in spring 

 plumage is unmistakable, with its black upper parts, large white 

 patch in the wings, orange stripe in center of the crown and another 



