50 BULLETIN 2 3, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Eggs. — The set for the golden- winged warbler may consist of any- 

 where from 4 to 7 eggs; 5 is perhaps the commonest number, but 4 

 is a common number, and the larger numbers are increasingly rare. 

 The eggs are ovate or short ovate, and have only a slight luster. 

 They are white or creamy white, with a wide variety of markings in 

 "auburn," "argus brown," "Mars brown," "hazel," "Hay's brown," 

 "liver brown," and "burnt umber," with underlying speckles or spots 

 of "light brownish drab" and "light vinaceous drab." There is, also, 

 much variation in the amount of markings, some being very sparingly 

 speckled and others are quite heavily marked, with some of the 

 spots assuming the proportions of blotches. Occasionally small hair- 

 line scrawls, or scattered spots, of brown so dark as to appear almost 

 black, are found. The markings are usually denser toward the large 

 end. The measurements of 50 eggs average IG.Y by 13.0 millimeters; 

 the eggs showing the four extremes measure 18.6 by 13.0, 16.8 by 13.7, 

 15.5 12.5, and 15.9 by 12.3 millimeters (Harris). 



Young. — Jacobs (1904) states that the incubation period is 10 days 

 and that the young birds are able to leave the nest 10 days after 

 hatching. In a nest which Maunsell S. Crosby (1912) watched closely, 

 the eggs hatched on June 1 and the young flew on June 10. 



The fledglings are delicate little birds, brownish olive on the back, 

 washed with yellow below, and have two widely separated yellow 

 wing bars. They have astonishingly long legs and soon become very 

 active, fluttering about in the shrubbery and clinging to the branches. 

 Walter Faxon (1911) in speaking of them gives this lively picture 

 which could well be applied to them soon after leaving the nest : "In ap- 

 pearance and habit they were grotesque little fellows, clinging with 

 their disproportionately long legs to the low herbage, like peeping 

 Hylas in the springtime clinging to the grasses and weeds above the 

 surface of the water. The little thread-like natal plumes still waving 

 from the tips of their crown feathers enhanced the oddity of their 

 appearance." Mr. Faxon, to be exact, is speaking here of some young 

 birds of mixed parentage, but his words apply equally well to the 

 behavior and appearance of the young of chrysoptera which he and 

 I watched year after year together. Both parents are very attentive 

 to their young brood, bringing to them food which they find both 

 on low plant growth and high in the overshadowing branches. 



The fledglings call to their parents with a very characteristic note, 

 a little quavering, high, fine chirp which I find written in my journal 

 cr?T and tzzz. It suggests somewhat a note of young chipping spar- 

 rows, but is less sharp and crisp. In form it also resembles the call of 

 the young cowbird, but again it is gentler and weaker in tone. Mr. 

 Faxon (1911) refers to it as the "cricket note." The young birds ac- 



