242 BULLETIN 2 03, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



of the crown, so as to exhibit to the full their beautiful black and 

 yellow markings. After much time spent in courting they mate, and 

 at once look about for a nesting place" (Forbush, 1929). Males seek- 

 ing mates "made advances to the female contingency, hopping from 

 twig to twig with outspread wings, chipping and fluttering, now re- 

 pulsed by the fair one, and now accepted by another one to whom 

 advances were made, to finally spend a few days in a favorable spot 

 and begin nest building" (Knight, 1908). 



Nesting. — On August 1, 1907, at Clarkes Harbor, Nova Scotia, I 

 found the first and only nest of the myrtle warbler that I have ever 

 seen ; it was about 15 feet from the ground on a horizontal branch of a 

 large spruce tree, about 5 feet out from the trunk, and contained three 

 young birds that were nearly fully feathered. Robie W. Tufts says in 

 his Nova Scotia notes : "I have seen these nests built at varying heights 

 from 5 to 50 feet high. One found on June 6, 1919, contained four 

 slightly incubated eggs. It was placed close to the stem of a pine tree, 

 near the top, about 50 feet up. My field experiences tend to support 

 the theory that these birds normally raise two broods a year." He 

 found one nest built in an apple tree in an orchard, of which he says : 

 "Of the large number of nests of this species I have examined, this is 

 the only one not built in a conifer." 



There are two Nova Scotia nests of the myrtle warbler in the Thayer 

 collection in Cambridge, both taken by H. F. Tufts. They are slightly 

 different in composition and structure, but are probably fairly typical 

 of the species. One, found saddled on a spruce limb 10 feet from the 

 ground, is rather bulky and loosely built ; the foundation and sides are 

 made of fine coniferous twigs mixed on the bottom with grasses and 

 rootlets and around the rim firmly interwoven with black horsehair, 

 or perhaps moose hair, and finer rootlets; the cup is smoothly lined 

 with finer hair and feathers. Externally it measures, roughly, 4 by 

 5 inches in diameter and about 2 inches in height ; the cup is about 2 

 inches in diameter and 1% inches deep. The other, a very pretty nest 

 found 8 feet up in a small spruce, close to the trunk, is more firmly and 

 compactly built; the base and sides are made up mainly of green 

 mosses and a few gray lichens mixed with fine twigs and a few fine 

 grasses, all firmly interwoven; internally the cup is smoothly lined 

 with fine black and white hairs on top of a few feathers. Externally 

 it measures 2^4 inches in height and 3 by 31^ inches in diameter ; the 

 cup is 2 inches in diameter and about 1^ inches deep. 



Of nestings in Maine, Knight (1908) says : "As soon as nest building 

 begins, the favorite locality selected is a thicket of evergreen trees near 

 the highway, some open pasture containing a few clumps of scattered 

 evergreens, small thickets of evergreens along the banks of some stream 

 or river or about the shore of a pond or lake, or a row of trees about 



