KENTUCKY WARBLER 505 



thick outer layer contained about 200 dead leaves which were whole or 

 nearly whole, chiefly medium-sized leaves of oak, beech, and red maple. 

 The inner lining, very thin in comparison with the bulky outer wall, 

 consisted of fine rootlets and other fibrous material. The nest con- 

 tained two proper eggs and one of the cowbird. 



"The female, if she happened to be incubating or, later, brooding 

 the nestlings at the time of my visits, would sit bravely facing me while 

 I looked down at her with my head scarcely more than a foot distant 

 from her. When I tried to touch her, she jumped abruptly from the 

 nest and walked slowly over the ground with the tips of her wings 

 dragging, chirping excitedly. 



"I have another record of a nest found near Baltimore on June 22, 

 1934. It was in weedy open woods, on the ground at the foot of a bush. 

 It contained four newly laid eggs." 



F. L. Burns (Chapman, 1907) says: 



The nest is often placed in the most unexpected places : It may be on top of the 

 ground at the foot of a beech, spice-bush, dog-wood, sweet birch, or black haw 

 sprout ; under a fallen bough, or perhaps just off the wet earth between the 

 ground forks of a bunch of spice-wood, winter fern, Spanish needles or other 

 weeds ; or less frequently, in the midst of a patch of wild sarsaparilla, mandrake 

 or other annuals, with nothing to turn aside the crushing foot of man or beast. 

 It is usually well concealed by the surrounding vegetation while in a compara- 

 tively open spot, and if not directly in an abandoned cartroad, not far from some 

 woodland footpath, public road, or the edge of the woods. 



A rather bulky and loosely constructed nest, outwardly of somewhat ragged 

 dead leaves of the chestnut, beech, cherry, maple, white, black and chestnut 

 oak, a few weed or grass stems, an occasional strip of vsdld grapevine bark, and, 

 once, many green leaves of the dogwood, and, in another example, several oak 

 blossoms ; usually followed by an inner layer of bright, clean dead leaves of the 

 beech, lined with black rootlets and in fully half of the nests examined, a few 

 long black horse-hairs. In one instance the lining was of light-colored rootlets. 

 Another nest, so well hidden in a patch of woodplants that I accidentally trod 

 upon it while actually searching for it, was a most frail affair built exclusively 

 of grasses, lined with black rootlets, however. 



During the nest building period the birds are so extremely Jealous and watch- 

 ful, deserting the site rather than be spied upon, that I have been unable so far 

 to follow this interesting period to a finish. The male unquestionably aids his 

 mate. 



Charles F. De Garis (1936) has published an interesting paper 

 describing six nests of the Kentucky warbler, among which was one 

 peculiar nest in an unusual situation. It was placed in a fence corner 

 of a garden in an open situation. 



There was no trace of logs or lichens, ferns or vines, no shelter of any kind, 

 in fact nothing but a heap of clods and leaves raked from the garden. * * * 



With the purpose of offering her a choice of artificial materials, I worked till 

 dark assembling bits of plain and colored string, thread, cotton and wool, and 

 such fragments of ribbon and rayon as I could find. When the female came, the 

 next morning, she "made several trips for grass before taking any notice of 



