BLACK-AND-WHITE WARBLER 7 



T. M. Brewer on the subject, thus: "This bird, which you speak of 

 as breeding in the hollows of trees, with us always builds its nest on 

 the ground. I say always, because I never knew it to lay anywhere 

 else. I have by me a nest brought to me by Mr. Appleton from Batter- 

 nits, New York, which was found in the drain of the house in which 

 he resided." 



Minot (1877) speaks of two nests found near Boston, Mass., well 

 above the ground. He says : "The first was in a pine grove, in the 

 cavity of a tree rent by lightning, and about five feet from the ground, 

 and the other on the top of a low birch stump, which stood in a grove 

 of white oaks." 



Gordon Boit Wellman (1905) states: "Toward the last of the in- 

 cubation time one of the birds was constantly on the nest. I found 

 the male sitting usually at about dusk, but I think the female sat on the 

 eggs over night." 



Eggs. — [Author's Note : The black-and-white warbler usually lays 

 4 or 5 eggs to a set, normally 5, seldom fewer or more. These are 

 ovate to short ovate and slightly glossy. The ground color is white 

 or creamy white. Some are finely sprinkled over the entire surface 

 with "cinnamon-brown," "Mars brown," and "dark purplish drab"; 

 others are boldly spotted and blotched with "russet" and "Vandyke 

 brown," with underlying spots of "brownish drab," "light brownish 

 drab," and "light vinaceous-drab." Speckled eggs are commoner 

 than the more boldly blotched type. The markings are usually con- 

 centrated at the large end, and on some of the heavily spotted eggs 

 there is a solid wreath of different shades of russet and drab. The 

 measurements of 50 eggs average 17.2 by 13.3 millimeters; the eggs 

 showing the four extremes measure 18.8 by 13.7, 17.9 by 14.7, 15.7 by 

 12.7, and 16.3 by 12.2 millimeters (Harris) .] 



Toimg. — Cordelia J. Stanwood (MS.) speaks of the nestlings a 

 few days from the ^gg as "very dark gray, much like young j uncos 

 and Nashville warblers." But when they leave the nest they are 

 clearly recognizable as young black-and-white warblers, although they 

 are slightly tinged with brownish. By mid-July, here in New Eng- 

 land, they assume their first winter plumage, and, as both sexes of 

 the young birds have whitish cheeks, they resemble very closely their 

 female parent. 



Unlike the young of some of the other warblers which remain near 

 the ground for many days, the young black-and-white warblers shortly 

 ascend to the branches of trees where they are fed by the old birds. 



I find no definite record of the length of the incubation period, but 

 in a nest I watched in 1914 it was close to 10 days. Burns (1921) gives 

 the period of nestling life as 8 to 12 days. 



