LOUISIANA WATERTHRUSH 495 



or else in quite vertical cliffs of bare rock, their faces broken into a 

 myriad fragments by the shattered edges of the strata. Here and 

 there, rooted in a deeper niche in the cliff, a belated columbine held its 

 nodding scarlet blossoms. 



"As I passed downward through the narrow defile, an inconspicu- 

 ous brown bird darted out from a niche almost at the foot of the wall 

 to my left, and flew quietly downstream ahead of me. The brown 

 feathers which concealed them gone, the whitish eggs caught my eye 

 in a twinkling ; and there, in plain view, was my first Louisiana water- 

 thrush's nest, scarcely concealed in its little niche in the moss-covered 

 cliff. It was a firm, well-made but shallow cup constructed, on a 

 foundation of dead leaves, of fine herbaceous stems, more half-decayed 

 leaves interspersed with a little moss, and lined up fine rootlets and 

 fibers, I believe, from decayed fern stipes." 



Of 14 Pennsylvania nests, for which T. E. McMullen has sent me 

 the data, all but one were over or close to water along the banks of 

 streams, either in the banks or under the roots of trees ; the other was 

 in the upturned roots of a tree in a swamp. 



I have seen but two nests of the Louisiana waterthrush in southern 

 New England. The first was near the eastern limit of the breeding 

 range of the species, in Kingston swamp, R. I., a locality described 

 under the northern waterthrush, and was within 100 yards of occupied 

 nests of the northern species and of the winter wren. Located in the 

 upturned roots of a fallen tree, 12 inches above the pool of water that 

 filled the cavity left by the uprooted tree, it was made of dead leaves, 

 moss, and rootlets, and was lined with finer pieces of the same mate- 

 rials and with some white deer hair. 



At Hadlyme, Conn., on May 19, 1934, while following two com- 

 panions along the banks of a small, quiet brook that wound its way 

 through some low, swampy woods of maples, black and yellow birches, 

 oaks, beeches, dogwoods, ironwoods, laurels, and azaleas, with plenty 

 of skunkcabbages, I saw a bird flush out behind them and fly across 

 the brook. Its nest was soon found deeply hidden between the roots 

 of and directly under the trunk of a large yellow birch within a yard 

 of the brook. The nest, on a foundation of dead leaves, was made 

 of fine grasses and rootlets, and was lined with the reddish, fruiting 

 stems of mosses. 



A nest found by Clarence F. Stone near Branchport, N. Y., was 

 beautifully concealed under a mass of ferns that overhung a bank. 



Eggs. — From 4 to 6 eggs constitute the usual set for the Louisiana 

 waterthrush, 5 being the commonest number. The nest described 

 above by Dr. Skutch held the remarkable number of 10 eggs, but these 

 were probably the product of two females, for, otherwise, we have no 



