MAGNOLIA WARBLER 197 



In Allegany Park, N. Y., according to Aretas A. Saunders (1938) ; 

 "Magnolia warblers seem to have territory and a definite singing loca- 

 tion, but I have seen no animosity toward each other or other species 

 of warblers, such as the black-throated green and blackburnian, birds 

 that have very similar habits and live in the same habitat and some- 

 times sing regularly in the same tree. * * * Territories are evi- 

 dently vertical as well as horizontal, that is measured in volume rather 

 than area, so that a clump of big hemlocks furnishes space for several 

 pairs and several species of hemlock-loving warblers." 



Cov/rtshi'p. — William H. Moore (1904) says: "During the mating 

 season the males are pugnacious little fellows, and many fights do 

 rivals have. They attack each other with much fierceness, seizing hold 

 with their beaks, and hitting with half-opened wings they sprawl 

 about on the ground, until thoroughly overcome. "Wlien pressing his 

 suit to the female of his choice, the male displays his colors to great 

 advantage, as they show in fine contrast among the bright green 

 foliage of the trees." 



Nesting. — All the 14 or more nests that I have seen, in Maine, New 

 Brunswick, Quebec, and Newfoundland, have been in small spruces or 

 balsam firs growing in old clearings, in reclaimed boggy pastures, or 

 along the edges of coniferous woods. These little trees were often less 

 than 6 feet high and generally stood in dense thickets. The lowest 

 nest I find recorded in my notes was only 12 inches above the ground 

 in a tiny fir, and the highest was 8 feet up in a slender balsam in a thick 

 clump of these trees in rather open woods ; more nests were below 5 

 feet than above it. The nests usually rested on horizontal branches 

 or twigs and against the trunk but in a few cases they were placed a 

 few inches or a foot out on a branch. 



Similar nesting habits seem to be characteristic of the magnolia 

 warbler in other parts of northern New England, Nova Scotia, and 

 southern Canada according to information received from others ; and 

 most of the nests have been placed at similar low levels, though Mr. 

 Brewster (1938) found one near Lake Umbagog that was 25 feet from 

 the ground. In this northeastern region an occasional nest has been 

 found in a cedar, a larch, or a small hemlock, but at a height usually 

 less than 5 feet. 



In New York and Pennsylvania hemlock seems to be the favorite 

 tree, and the magnolia warbler more often places its nest at a higher 

 level and well out toward the end of a horizontal branch, where it is 

 usually shaded and sometimes well concealed in dense foliage. Verdi 

 Burtch, of Branchport, N. Y., wrote to Dr. Chapman (1907) that 

 he found nests "in hemlocks usually on a horizontal limb from eight 

 to twenty feet up and over an opening in the woods. Several nests 

 were found in the top of little hemlock saplings from one to five feet 



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