120 



THE OOLOGIST. 



dilapidated looking one of the bunch 

 to raise their young in, but they sel- 

 dom do so, usually laying in a compact, 

 well-built nest. An instance of nest 

 building recorded in my note-book 

 is as follows : 



"Pair of birds worked industrious- 

 ly on three nests for several days, 

 working alternately on each nest un- 

 til they were finished. During nest 

 building, which was mostly done by 

 the female, the male often ascended 

 about twenty or more feet in the air 

 in a burst of passionate song, which 

 he would finish in the rushes. After 

 the nests were completed, or to be 

 more explicit, after the completion of 

 one, for the two others remained un- 

 lined, the bird laid in the chosen 

 nest, and during incubation, the male 

 sang to her except when he busied 

 himself in building another sham nest 

 or shared with her the duty of incu- 

 bating the eggs." 



Some times two nests only would 

 be finished when the female had to 

 lay in one and the male would busy 

 himself by constructing one or two 

 others during incubation, when not 

 eating or singing, though he eats and 

 sings at the same time. 



Which sex select the nest sit, if anj 

 selection there is, which is probable, 

 I have never been able to ascertain, 

 as only two cases of "nest selec- 

 tion," if I may use the phrase, have 

 come under my observation, and as 

 the sexes are alike, I could draw no 

 important conclusion from them. 

 However, the site chosen, nest build- 

 ing rapidly progresses. Sometimes, 

 according to the whim of the erratic 

 birds; they, or one of them, usually 

 the female, will work incessantly on 

 a new nest, seemingly anxious to 

 complete it, but would quit and begin 

 on another or fly away to feed. Some- 

 times both birds would industriously 

 work on a nest, but the male usually 



would accompany his wife after ma- 

 terial and come to the nest with her 

 and while she worked away, he gayly 

 sang, sometimes helping to arrange 

 a rush in the nest. The female con- 

 structed the greater part of the nests 

 before she commenced laying, after 

 which her lazy consort built seeming- 

 ly worthless false or sham nests. 

 Rarely have I seen both birds at work 

 on separate nests, but one instance 

 having been recorded, and the male 

 only placed his material on the nest. 

 So thick are the rushes in the 

 marsh that observation is with diffi- 

 culty carried on, and amid the tang- 

 led dense mass of rushes mating and 

 copulating, of which so little is known 

 regarding any of our birds, take 

 place, but the concealment afforded 

 by the thick tubes has prevented me 

 from learning any thing respecting 

 these habits and very little of their 

 nesting habits. 



A nesting site is usually several 

 closely growing upright cat-tail stalks 

 or blades to which the nest is at- 

 tached, interwoven with pliable dried 

 or green rushes. Some are loosely 

 and others securely woven to the cat- 

 tails, and in this marsh all nests are 

 over the water, but farther up the 

 river, in the meadows, nests are often 

 found in muddy clumps of calamus 

 and cat-tail rushes. As a rule, in the 

 marsh, nests are 4 and 5 feet up, 

 which is the average height in cat- 

 tail marshes, extremes being one and 

 seven feet. The latter nests are 

 placed in unusually tall rushes, which 

 grow to the height of S feet. The 

 birds have no preference, as far as 

 I have learned, for sites or choice, as 

 they nest everywhere in the marsh, 

 often along the edges where their 

 nests are plainly to be seen by every 

 passer-by. 



As regards the composition of the 

 nests, some authorities state that mud 



