54 



THE OOLOGIST. 



ing our border we can now write, rare 

 nest and eggs unknown only of Kirt- 

 land's Warbler." At this time but 

 seventy-five specimens were known to 

 science— 55 from the Bahamas, 20 

 from the United States. Since then a 

 few more have been taken, but count- 

 ing Mr. Wood's records, we now have 

 a total of 31 from Michigan alone. 



Mr. Wood struck a small colony 

 and discovered two nests one of which 

 contained one egg. Through the 

 courtesies of the Editorof the Bulletin, 

 we are able to present to readers of the 

 Oologist a halftone of Mr. Wood and 

 make a few quotations from his arti- 

 cle — "Discovery of the Breeding Area 

 of Kirtland's Warbler." 



"Early in June, l'J03, the Museum 

 assistant, Mr. E. H. Frothingham, 

 with a friend, Mr. T. G. Gale, went to 

 Oscoda Caunty Michigan, to fish the 

 Au Sable river. On one of their short 

 trips Mr. Frothingham, who is an ex- 

 perienced field ornithologist, heard a 

 bird song which he did not recognize. 

 Mr. Gale shot the bird. The skin was 

 preserved and was found on their re- 

 turn to be a male Dendroica kirtlandi. 

 When I saw this skin of Kirtland's 

 Warbler, taken in northern Michigan, 

 I concluded there was its summer 

 home, and there it would be found 

 breeding. At 4:45, on the evening of 

 June 29th, I boarded the Toledo, Ann 

 Arbor and Northern R. R. train, bound 

 for Roscommon, in the extreme north 

 of that county. I arrived at this old 

 lumber town at 6 a, m. June 30th, 

 after a tedious night's travel, due to 

 two changes of cars. After some in- 

 quiry I found that my objective point 

 was thirty-five miles to the northeast, 

 and that the best way to reach this 

 point was by the river. The South 

 branch, one of the main feeders of the 

 Au Sable, runs near the town. At 7 

 a. m. I was on board a row boat on a 

 sixty mile run down the river. 



"It may be imagined with what de- 



light I beheld the first nest of this 

 rare bird ever seen, and with what 

 eagerness I dropped to my knees be- 

 side it to make a closer examination 

 of its contents. There were two young 

 birds' perhaps ten days old, and a per- 

 fect egg; this proved to be the only 

 egg found. 



"This egg was a delicate pinkish- 

 white, fsince the contents were remov- 

 ed it has faded to a dull white,; thin- 

 ly sprinkled with shades of brown 

 spots forming a sort of wreath at the 

 large end. This egg is .72 x .56 inch- 

 es or 18 by 14 mm., and containe no 

 embryo. The nest was built in a de- 

 pression in the ground, at the foot of 

 a jack pine about five feet tall, and 

 was only five feet from the road. It 

 was partly covered with low blueberries 

 and sweet- fern plants. The nest is 

 two inches inside diameter and the 

 same in depth, very neat and compact, 

 and is composed of strips of soft bark 

 and some vegetable fiber, thickly lined 

 with fine dead grass and pine needles. 

 A few hairs from horses mane or tail 

 complete the lining. 



"As I sat near the nest the female 

 came and alighted on the branch of 

 the jack pine just back of the nest. 

 She was not at all shy. Once she 

 came with a worm in her mouth, but 

 she would not feed the young while I 

 was so near. The male also came, 

 ))ut not so close. Both birds were 

 very restless aud uneasy— only a few 

 seconds in a place— which made it 

 very difficult to take photographs of 

 them. 



"I made Eraser's on the North 

 brrnch, Crawford county, my head- 

 quarters for a few days that I might be 

 near this colony of Kirtlands. I saw 

 (July 9th j a third female and too r a 

 male, but I wished to locate all the 

 nests I could, so I did not shoot the 

 females. I made a second trip to the 

 nest and found both parents feeding 

 the young. After watching them a 



