CATBIRD 323 



larly built in the blackberry briers that bordered our vegetable 

 garden of a central-Illinois farm. The old apple orchard was also 

 a favorite nesting place of a pair of them. Witmer Stone (1913a) 

 writes as follows : "Every old garden has somewhere about it a shady 

 thicket of lilacs, mock-orange, or some similar shrubbery in a niche by 

 the back porch, perhaps, or behind the greenhouse, or over in the 

 corner where the fences come together; and it is with such a spot 

 that the Catbird is most closely associated in my mind." 



All the nests I have examined have been placed relatively low, 

 ranging from 2 to 6 feet above ground. A. D. DuBois has sent 

 us details of 16 nests that he found located in osage-orange hedges, 

 willows, a small elm, thorn trees, elderberry, and various bushes and 

 shrubs. These nests ranged from 3 to 10 feet above ground. 



In Maine the catbird sometimes resorts to coniferous trees, and I 

 have found the nests in low thick spruce and fir trees. R. T. Morris 

 (1923) reports a pair of catbirds that built in a pine tree on his 

 place at Stamford, Conn. The nest was at an elevation of 20 feet 

 above ground. Two broods were reared, but he could not be sure 

 the same nest was used for the second brood, as the branches were 

 too thick to allow climbing for investigation. Catbirds are not ad- 

 verse to wet situations, and some of them have been found nesting 

 in cattail marshes and inland swamps. C. R. Stockard (1905) 

 states that in the east-central portion of Mississippi he has found 

 nests of the catbird in bushes bordering lakes in which the nests 

 were suspended over the water. 



As might be expected, individual catbirds may depart from the 

 usual nesting sites. M. B. Trautman (1940) studied 35 catbird nests 

 in the region of Buckeye Lake, Ohio, of which two were built on the 

 ground in spite of the fact other more favorable places were available. 

 At the other extreme Pearson and the Brimleys (1919) reported a 

 nest located 50 to 60 feet above the level of the ground. W. N. Colton 

 (1889) reports finding a catbird's nest in a natural cavity of a dead 

 apple tree. The birds had filled up a cavity almost 9 inches deep with 

 nesting materials. These nesting sites represent unusual conditions, 

 and we should not allow them to confuse our conception of the usual 

 nesting site of the catbird. 



The nest has a substantial and bulky foundation of coarse sticks, 

 weed stems, grasses, leaves, and twigs. It is rather rough and strag- 

 gly-appearing outwardly but neatly lined with skeleton leaves, pine 

 needles, fine shreds of bark, and more often with dark fibrous rootlets. 

 In the Midwest, nests are sometimes provided with a horsehair lining. 

 Some of the nests, especially those built near the habitations of man, 

 have in addition to the usual materials bits of paper, cotton, tow, 

 strings, and rags. W. L. McAtee (1940a), who analyzed the ma- 

 terials used in the construction of 12 catbird nests, reports as follows : 



