174 



CERULEAN WARBLER 



placed "in the fork of a limb at some distance from the body (of the 

 tree) and at from twenty-five to fifty feet from the ground." Nests 

 found by Saunders'^ in the western peninsula of Ontario were in bass- 

 wood, maple, oak or elm trees at from thirty to fifty-five feet from 

 the ground. In Baltimore County, Maryland, a nest was found by 

 Kirkwood^ in a tulip tree, forty-eight feet six inches up and fifteen 

 feet out from the body of the tree. 



Burtch (MS.) writes that at Branchport, N. Y., where the bird is 

 locally common, "the nest is usually placed on a horizontal branch or 

 drooping branch of an elm, ranging from twenty-five to sixty feet from 

 the ground, and from four, to fifteen, or eighteen feet from the body 

 of the tree over an opening. A nest found June 4, 1905, was in the 

 topmost branches of an elm over sixty feet up, and way out on the 

 branch. There was a nest of Red-eyed Vireo in middle of same tree 

 and twelve feet from the nest of Cerulean." 



Nest. — "The nest very closely resembles a typical nest of Traill's 

 Flycatcher, only smaller, being made of precisely the same materials 

 both inside and out." (Sinith^.) A nest from Monroe County, N. Y., 

 is "neatly and compactly built, consisting externally of fine dry grasses 

 of an ashen tint bound firmly together with spiders' silk, to which are 

 affixed a few bits of whitish lichen; it is lined with strips of bark 

 and fine grasses of a reddish brown color. The nest is gray extern- 

 ally and brown within." (Allen"^). 



Saunders''' describes the nest as extremely shallow and "mainly 

 composed of grasses and a few bark fibers, with a scanty lining of black 

 horse-hairs. * * * fhe whole is covered with the same silvery 

 gray bark strips the Redstart uses so freely, with some intermingling 

 of cobwebs, both bark strips and cobwebs having the appearance of 

 being put on while wet." 



Burtch (Branchport, N. Y.), writes that "the nest is always 

 saddled on a fork of a good-sized limb, much like that of a Wood 

 Pewee. It is well-made and very handsome, composed, of fine strips 

 of bark, lined with a fine red fiber, which may be very finely shredded 

 grapevine bark. Sometimes blossom stems or dead grass are used for 

 lining. The walls, where they touch the branch, are very thin, usually 

 nothing but the lining. The nests are usually profusely covered with 

 grayish lichens held in place with spiders' webs." 



Eggs. — 3 or 4, usually 4. Ground color a pale bluish or greenish 

 white spotted and speckled with reddish brown and lavender pretty well 

 over entire egg. Size; a typical set of 4 measures .69X.52, .70X.52, 

 .69X.52 and .69X.52. (Figs. 55,56.) 



