506 BULLETIN 2 3, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



my bargain counter display. Finally she became interested in a bit of brown 

 sweater wool, which she promptly conveyed to the nest. Then followed white 

 string, green string, yellow ribbon and the like, taken with little or no delibera- 

 tion. A piece of pale blue rayon gave her pause, but after shredding it a while 

 she took it on to the nest. However, she eschewed all materials of carmine, 

 scarlet and purple. 



The only nest of the Kentucky warbler that I have ever found was 

 in a typical situation in a large tract of heavy, deciduous, upland 

 woods in Delaware County, Pa., on June 8, 1896. I had been hunting 

 carefully and thoroughly over a limited area in which the male had 

 been singing and flitting about in an apparently unconcerned manner, 

 when I flushed the female from her nest almost at my feet; she flut- 

 tered along the ground as if with a broken wing. The nest was only 

 partially concealed beneath the leaves of two very small spice-wood 

 saplings. It was built up some 4 or 5 inches above the ground between 

 the two saplings with a great mass of beech and other hardwood 

 leaves; the inner nest was made of weed stems and rootlets and was 

 lined with finer rootlets and a little cowhair. It held five half -incu- 

 bated eggs. 



Eggs. — The Kentucky warbler lays from 3 to 6 eggs to a set ; sets 

 of 3 are j^erhaps incomplete and sets of 6 are rare. In a typical 

 series of 30 sets there are 13 sets of four, 10 sets of 5, and only 2 sets 

 of 6. The shape varies from short ovate to elongated ovate, and they 

 are only slightly lustrous. The white or creamy white ground color 

 is speckled, spotted, and sometimes blotched with shades of "bay," 

 "auburn," or "chestnut," with imdertones of "Quaker drab" or "light 

 mouse gray." Although some eggs are rather boldly marked with 

 blotches, the majority seem to be sf)eckled or finely spotted. On some 

 the speckles are very dense, on others they may be sparsely scattered 

 over the entire surface or concentrated at the large end. The meas- 

 urements of 50 eggs average 18.6 by 14.3 millimeters ; the eggs showing 

 the four extremes measure 20.4 by 15.7, 16.8 by 13.7, and 17.8 by 12.7 

 millimeters (Harris). 



Young. — At a nestful of eggs, marked and carefully watched, Mr. 

 De Garis (1936) found that "after twelve days' incubation all four 

 eggs hatched, and after ten days of nest-feeding the vigorous brood 

 of four was brought off. * * * j found that each egg was turned 

 on its long axis once, sometimes twice, every twenty-four hours, and 

 that the relative position of the eggs to each other was variously altered 

 from time to time." 



Evidently, all the incubating and brooding was performed by the 

 female, and "the burden of feeding the young was assumed very un- 

 equally by male and female. The male continued to devote most of 

 his waking hours to musical exercise, and only rarely passed on a small 

 moth or fly to his mate." When the time came for the young to leave 



