MNIOTILTIDiE — THE AMERICAN WAEBLEKS. 159 



he reserves for some nymph whom he meets in the au-. Mounting 

 by easy flights to the top of the tallest tree, he launches into the 

 air with a sort of suspended, hovering flight, and bursts into a per- 

 fect ecstacy of song — clear, ringing, copious, rivaUing the Goldfinch's 

 in \avaeity, and the Linnet's in melody. This strain is one of the 

 rarest bits of bird-melody to be heard. Over the woods, hid from 

 view, the ecstatic singer warbles his finest strain. In the song you 

 instantly detect his relationsliip to the Water Wagtail (Seitirus nove- 

 horacensis) — erroneously called Water Thrush — whose song is like- 

 wise a sudden burst, full and ringing, and with a tone of youthful 

 joyousness in it, as if the bird had just had some unexpected good 

 fortune. For nearly two years this strain of the pretty warbler was 

 httle more than a disembodied voice to me, and I was puzzled by 

 it as Thoreau was by his mysterious Night-Warbler, which, by the 

 way, I suspect was no new bird at all, but one he was otherwise 

 familiar with. The little bird himself seems disposed to keep the 

 matter a secret, and improves every opportunity to repeat before 

 you his shrill, accelerating lay, as if this were quite enough, and 

 all he laid claim to. Still, I trust I am betraying no confidence in 

 making the matter public here. I think this is preeminently his 

 love-song, as I hear it oftenest about the mating season. I have 

 caught half-suppressed bursts of it from two males chasing each 

 other with fearful speed thi-ough the forest." 



Accordmg to Dr. Brewer [Hist. N. Am. B. Vol. I., p. 282), "the 

 oven bird always nests on the ground, and generally constructs 

 nests with arched or domed roofs, with an entrance on one side, 

 like the mouth of an oven, and hence its common name. This 

 arched covering is not, however, universal. For a site this species 

 usually selects the wooded slope of a hill, and the nests are usually 

 sunk in the ground. When placed under the shelter of a projecting 

 root, or in a thick clump of bushes, the nest has no other cover 

 than a few loose leaves resting on, but forming no part of it. 



"A nest from Eacine, AVis., obtained by Dr. Hoy, is a tine typi- 

 cal specimen of the domed nests of this species. The roof is very 

 perfect, and the whole presents the appearance of two shallow nests 

 united at the rim, and leaving only a small opening at one side. 

 This nest was five inches in diameter from front to back, six inches 

 from side to side, and four inches high. The opening was two and 

 a quarter inches wide, one and thi-ee quarters high. The cavity 

 was two inches deep below the brim. At the entrance the roof re- 

 cedes about an inch, obviously to allow of a freer entrance and exit 



