THE WESTERN PARULA WARBLER. 



133 



of the Crystal Spring, so well known to Columbus picnickers, we saw a Parula 

 taking' a noonday bath. The bird permitted a close approach during his icy 

 ablutions. After this, upon a couch of tangled vines, he took a sun-bath in 

 leisurely fashion, preening, and shaking himself now and then until he looked 

 like a little blue and yellow pincushion. Then he whisked into a tree-top and 

 was lost in a trice. 





IEW I.OOKIXI 



In nesting, the Parula makes artful use of bunches of moss, or even 

 drift material left by a receding freshet. The moss is caught up and woven 

 into a pendulous subspherical mass, or if bulky enough already, the bird may 

 simply pull and pry and excavate a convenient hollow. Again the nest may 

 be entirely constructed of materials laboriously gathered. A writer in Penn- 

 sylvania, Airs. T. D. Dershimer, reports two such ne^ts in hemlock tree-. 



