526 BULLETIN 203, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



clearings and cut-over lands or slashings, often on the uplands, where 

 dense thickets of raspberries or tangles of blackberry vines have cov- 

 ered the open ground; it is also partial to patches of nettles and is 

 especially fond of extensive growths of jewel weed and other rank 

 herbage. It seldom ventures far into the shady woods but may be 

 found around the edges, along old brush fences and in lowland thickets, 

 such as are frequented by northern yellowthroats, even where the 

 ground is damp. 



Nesting. — The rather bulky nest of the mourning warbler is placed 

 on or near the ground, usually not over 6 inches above it, though some- 

 times as much as 30. It is generally built in tangles of raspberry, 

 blackberry, or other briery shrubs, sometimes in a bunch of ferns, in a 

 clump of goldenrod or other rank herbage, or even in a tussock of grass. 

 Ora W. Knight (1908) describes a nest found in Maine : 



The nest was quite a bulky affair and placed at the base of a clump of coarse 

 weed stocks about six inches from the ground. The outer nest was of dry leaves 

 and vine stalks. The nest proper was made up with a thick outer wall of dead, 

 coarse, flat-bladed grass, with finer grasses and a few weed stalks, and all 

 through this outer wall was interwoven a few small, dead, white maple leaves. 

 The inner wall was composed of fine grasses, and the inner lining contained a 

 few horsehairs. It was a very neat, compact nest, well built to protect the 

 eggs from dampness from the moist ground whei-e it was placed. It measured, 

 outside diameter, five inches ; inside diameter, two inches ; outside depth, three 

 and one-half inches ; inside depth, two inches. 



E. H. Eaton (1914) quotes Verdi Burtch, of Branchport, N. Y., as 

 follows : 



In Potter swamp, where the timber has been well thinned out, where the ground 

 is wet and springy, where the ferns, skunk cabbage, tall rue, spice bush, bishop's 

 cap, false Solomon's seal, white baneberry and marsh marigold mingle, and poison 

 ivy and woody nightshade cover the stumps and dead tops, and here and there 

 a tall dead stub towers above the bushes, here the Mourning warbler makes its 

 summer home, nesting along the abandoned wood roads and more open places 

 that are now grown up with grass, ferns, skunk cabbage, rue and marsh mari- 

 golds. * * * These swamp nests are usually situated in a grassy place among 

 the brush and tops that were left by the lumbermen, in a bunch of weeds, or iu 

 the middle of a bunch of skunk cabbage or ferns. One nest was placed on top of a 

 thick vine that ran over the ground and there was scarcely any attempt at con- 

 cealment. Another was in a very wet place in the heart of a marsh marigold. 

 Another was in a bunch of weeds on a rotted moss and dirt-covered log. The 

 nests are usually very well concealed and very near the ground. * * * 



The Mourning warbler also nests in an entirely different situation near Branch- 

 port. June 4, 1903, a nest was found in a dry bush lot clearing along a large 

 gully at an elevation of 250 feet above the valley. It was placed in a small beech 

 bush 18 inches from the ground among wild blackberry bushes, beech stumps and 

 sprouts. * * * ^ nest found June 13, 1909, was a little farther up this same 

 hill and was placed on the ground in a clump of oxeye daisies close by the highway 

 through some woods and it was less than 2 feet from the beaten track. 



