THE OOLOGIST 



65 



always built close to the ground. 

 Usually from ten to twenty-four inches 

 up, rarely more, and I have seen sev- 

 eral in brush hemlock that were but 

 four to six inches off the ground. 



Laurel beds seem to be their fav- 

 orite nesting sites. Fully two-thirds 

 of the nests I have found were in laur- 

 el. Next to laurel thickets and clumps 

 of- low hemlock, brush is preferred, 

 Only rarely do I see one in green 

 brush. 



The nests are compact and cup- 

 shaped and sometimes are beautiful 

 structures. The handsomest warblers 

 nests I have ever seen were of this 

 species. 



The favorite materials are grape 

 vine bark, fine strips of yellow and 

 white birch bark and rotten wood. 

 Many nests are almost entirely built 

 of fine shreds of white and yellow rot- 

 ten wood and are very pretty. For- 

 lining, fine black rootlets and fine 

 grasses are used. Four is the usual 

 number of eggs, occasionally only 

 three. Have not yet found a set of 

 five. All sets I have found were well 

 wreathed, but they vary greatly in ex- 

 tent of markings. Some are simply 

 wreathed and some sets are heavily 

 marked all over. 



R. B. SIMPSON. 



The Cerulean Warbler. 

 (Dendroica cerulea.) 



A few years ago I spent several sea- 

 sons in the mountains of Doddridge 

 County, West Virginia in the employ 

 of the Standard Oil Company. 



The country there is rougher than 

 at my home here. The mountains 

 are steeper and run to peaks and 

 ridges with none of the platteaus of 

 my home hills. 



The timber was big and tall, but 

 in that region was entirely hardwood. 

 An evergreen was a rare sight. I 

 missed the fern and moss-covered 



depths of the cool hemlock forests of 

 Northern Pennsylvania, for here the 

 ground in the woods was dry and along 

 in the Fall, water was a scarce arti- 

 cle. 



Although I didn't like the country 

 a little bit, I found a few birds com- 

 mon there, that at home were un- 

 known, or occurred only as rare strag- 

 glers. 



Of these new ones I was most in- 

 terested in the warblers, and found 

 several quite desirable species, such 

 as the Cerulean, Kentucky, Worm-eat- 

 ing, and Golden-winged to be more or 

 less common in summer. Of these I 

 became much interested in the Ceru- 

 lean. 



In nearly twenty years collecting 

 here at Warren, I have never met 

 with it but twice. 



I found they arrived there April 

 20th, 1896, April 22, 1897, and May 1, 

 1898. On the first day of their arriv- 

 al several could be heard in almost 

 any woods and in a few days they 

 were common. I never saw them 

 about orchards or farm houses. They 

 seemed to prefer the woodland alto- 

 gether, and whether open or heavy, 

 the songs of the males could be heard 

 overhead anywhere, as they spent 

 most of their time singing. 



After about August 1st they were 

 quiet and soon seemed to have all dis- 

 appeared. 



Although so common, I found it a 

 difficult matter to find nests. Most of 

 my time I spent near the head of a 

 little stream well up a mountain-side. 

 This place was sloping and not very 

 steep. There was also several benches 

 or flats and it was heavily timbered 

 with mostly oak, hickory and poplar. 



By spending all spare time possible 

 in watching the different female birds, 

 especially when near the ground in 

 old tree-tops or grape vines, I was en- 

 abled to catch a good many hunting 



