SWAINSON'S WARBLER 33 



The nest June 27 is very much larger, in fact quite the largest specimen that I 

 have seen, measuring externally 5.00 in diameter by 6.00 in depth ; internally 1.50 

 in diameter by 1.25 in depth ; with the rim in places 1.75 thick. It is shaped like 

 an inverted cone, the apex extending down nearly to the point of junction of 

 the numerous fascicled stems which surround and support its sides. Its total 

 bulk fully equals the average nest of our Crow Blackbird, while it is not nearly 

 as finished a specimen of bird architecture. Indeed it would be difficult to imagine 

 anything ruder than its outer walls, — composed of mud-soaked leaves of the 

 sweet gum, water oak, holly, and cane, thrown together into a loose mass, bristling 

 with rough stems, and wholly devoid of symmetry or regularity of outline. The 

 interior, however, lined with pine needles, moss fibre, black rootlets, and a little 

 horse-hair, is not less smooth and rounded than in the other specimens. 



Troup D. Perry (1887), with his friend George Noble, found no 

 less than 24 nests near Savannah, Ga., in 1887 ; some of these were in 

 gall or myrtle bushes and one was in a saw palmetto 2i/2 feet high. 

 S. A. Grimes has sent us a photograph of a nest on the broad leaf 

 of a saw palmetto (pi. 7). Albert J. Kirn (1918) says of the nest- 

 ing sites of Swainson's warbler in Oklahoma : "A well shaded clump 

 of trees in the woods, such a place as would suggest itself for a Wood 

 Thrush, yet not exactly so, with considerable 'buck brush' under- 

 growth, but no grass or weeds is selected for a nesting site. In the 

 top of this 'buck brush' usually about two feet high the nest is built ; 

 about half of the nests found were close to the river bank — the 

 Little Caney River. All but two were built in the brushy under- 

 growth. These two were fastened to briers and slender brush and 

 were higher up, 3.5 and 4 feet." 



F. M. Jones wrote to Brooks and Legg (1942) of a nest found in 

 southwestern Virginia : "This nest was in a very dense growth of 

 rhododendron bushes close to a stream of water where the sunlight 

 never penetrated. It was 5 ft. 6 in. up, built in the forks of a slender 

 beech limb which grew across the top of a rhododendron bush (i?. 

 maximum) and partly supported by the top of the rhododendron. 

 * * * The outside of the nest measured 7 in. wide by 5 in. deep 

 and the inside 2 in. wide by li%6 i^^- deep." 



It is evident, from the above and other similar accounts that, at 

 higher elevations northward and westward, Swainson's warbler nests 

 in bushes and vines where there are no canes to be found.] 



Eggs. — Swainson's warbler usually lays three eggs ; sets of four are 

 rare and of five very rare. Although there are records of nests con- 

 taining two incubated eggs or two young birds, these probably repre- 

 sent incomplete sets or cases where an egg or a nestling has been 

 destroyed. 



Eggs are quite globular, the two ends sometimes scarcely dis- 

 tinguishable ; the shell is thick and has a distinct polish; the ground 

 color is white with a bluish tinge ; however, a set of three eggs in the 



