150 AUDUBON'S WARBLER 



Nesting Site. — In Estes Park, Colorado, the nest is saddled on the 

 limb of a pine or spruce eight to thirty-five feet from the ground, 

 sometimes near the trunk, at others ten feet out. Bowles (MS.) 

 writes that at Tacoma, Washington, this species "nests invari- 

 ably in fir trees on a limb, from four to fifty feet, but usually about 

 twenty feet up." In Arizona, Howard^ states that a nest placed 

 fifteen feet up in a fir tree was unusually low for this species, and 

 records a second nest as fifty feet up in a sugar pine twelve feet out 

 from the trunk. At Fort Sherman, Idaho, however, a majority of the 

 nests found by MerrilF "were in deciduous trees and bushes generally 

 but a few feet from the ground." 



Nest. — "Loosely constructed of weed-stems and tops, and strips 

 of bark, lined with fine weeds and horse-hair." (Estes Park, Colo.) 

 "The nest is a well built bulky structure, the largest of any of our 

 Warblers', measuring externally 3.5 inches in width by 2.5 inches in 

 depth. * * * It is very handsome, as a rule, being built of fir twigs, 

 everlasting weed, rootlets, moss, and dried grass with a thick lining of 

 horse-hair and feathers." (Bowles*.) 



"The nests are very loosely constructed being composed almost 

 entirely of loose straws with a few feathers and hair for lining." 

 (Hozvard^.) "Such nests as were found here, while varying consider- 

 ably as to exterior, agree in having a lining in which black horse hairs 

 are conspicuous, and in which feathers are loosely attached, not well 

 woven in as is usual in most small nests." (MerrilP.) 



Eggs. — 3 to 5, usually 4. Ground color varies from dull white 

 or greenish white to bluish white, spotted and blotched with olive- 

 brown, lilac, purplish brown and lavender, very sparingly in some 

 types, quite boldly in others, but usually forming more or less of a 

 wreath around large end. Size ; average, .72X.54, extremes measure 

 .74X.53, .69X.55, .72X.51, .72X.56. (Figs. 50,51.) 



Nesting Dates. — Colorado, between 7,600-8,600 feet altitude, June 

 16 (Dille) ; Tacoma, Wash., April 22, four eggs ready to hatch — June 

 26 four eggs fresh. (Bozvles). 



Biographical References 



(i) H. W. Henshaw, Z06I. Exp. W. looth Merid., 1875, I94- (2) J. C. 

 Merrill, Birds of Fort Sherman, Idaho, Auk, XV, 1898, 18. (3) O. W. 

 Howard, Summer Resident Warblers of Arizona, Bull Cooper Orn. Club 

 (=Condor), I, 1899, 64. (4) J. H. Bowles, The Audubon Warbler in Wash- 

 ington, Condor, IV, 1902, 118. (5) L. Keyser, Birds of the Rockies, 62. 



