644 BULLETIN 2 03, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



J. Stuart Kowley writes to me : "The nests which I have found were 

 all well-made, deep-cupped affairs and were all placed on the ground, 

 either at the base of a clump of skunk cabbage or of a small sapling or 

 shrub," 



Eggs. — From 3 to 5 eggs, most often 4, make up the set for the 

 golden pileolated warbler. These are, apparently, indistinguishable 

 from those of other races of the species. The measurements of 40 

 eggs average 16.2 by 12.4 millimeters; the eggs showing the four 

 extremes measure 17.0 by 13.0, and 15.0 by 11.9 millimeters. 



Young. — Mrs. Amelia S. Allen says in her notes : "I flushed a female 

 from her nest about a foot from the ground in dense bracken. I sat 

 down 6 feet from the nest and she returned almost immediately and 

 regurgitated food, then brooded the three young that had been hatched 

 recently. Then she spent 4 minutes hunting for food, returned, fed 

 the young, and brooded 8 minutes." A few days later torrential rains 

 fell for 4 days, after which she found "a water-soaked nest containing 

 five naked young that had been drowned." 



Mrs. Wlieelock (1904) says: 



The first brood is usually hatched early in May, and is fed by regurgitation 

 by both parents until four or five days old, when the usual food of small 

 insects and little green worms is given to them in the fresh state. As soon 

 as their nursery days are over, the male takes entire charge of the nestlings, 

 feeding them for ten days or two weeks longer. 



For the second brood a locality slightly higher up the mountain may be 

 chosen, but oftener the little mother builds her second nest within a hundred 

 yards of the first, commencing it alone, while the male is still occupied with the 

 first series. Incubation lasts twelve days, and is, I think, attended to solely 

 by the female, although the male is frequently at the nest both to feed her 

 and to watch over — but not brood — the eggs. 



Food. — Prof. Beal (1907) examined 52 stomachs of the golden 

 pileolated warbler, and says : 



Animal matter amounts to over 93 percent, vegetable to less than 7 percent. 

 Of the former, the larger item is Hemiptera, which aggregates over 35 percent. 

 The black olive scale was found in four stomachs, but leaf-hoppers make up 

 the bulk of this portion of the food. Hymenoptera stand next in importance, 

 with 31 percent, made up of both wasps and ants. Flies are eaten to the extent 

 of 11 percent, and in connection with the Hymenoptera proves what observa- 

 tions of its habits indicate, that this bird gets much of its food when on the 

 wing. A good many of the insects were the tipulids, or crane-flies. Beetles of 

 half a dozen different families were eaten to the extent of about 9 percent. 

 They were mostly leaf-beetles (Chrysomelidae), with a few weevils and one 

 or two others. No coccinellids were found. Somewhat less than 5 percent of 

 the food consists of caterpillars. They do not appear to be favorite food, for 

 they are eaten very irregularly. Spiders also are taken only sparingly, and 

 form but little more than 1 percent of the total food. 



The vegetable food, less than 7 percent of the total, is made up almost entirely 

 of fruit pulp, and was eaten in the months of September and October. 



