248 



MOURNING WARBLER 



higher pitched. A less common form slightly resembles the crescendo 

 chant of Oven-bird, but is weaker. It is rather a swell than a cres- 

 cendo. Dr. Merriam describes a variation which I have never heard : 

 'true 'true 'true 'tri'i 'too, the last and next to the last syllables with fall- 

 ing inflection and more softly. The song is clear and whistling, 



"Song is incessant during the northward movement, but there is 

 apparently none on the return journey." (Jones.) 



Miss Paddock sends four renderings and writes : "The quality 

 is very full and rich and the rhythm unmistakable." 



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Nesting Site. — In briars or weedy growths in thickets usually six 

 to twenty inches above the ground. 



Nest. — Swain* describes a Maine nest as bulky but neat and com- 

 pact, made externally of dry leaves and vine stalks with an inner wall 

 of dead, coarse, flat-bladed grass, with finer grasses and a few weed 

 stalks, all through this wall a few small, dead white maple leaves being 

 interwoven. The lining was composed of fine grasses and a few horse- 

 hairs. 



A nest found by Tabor^ in northern Cayuga County, N. Y., is 

 "composed of weed stalks with layers of leaves mixed in, and is lined 

 with fine black rootlets." 



Eggs. — Usually 4. Ground color white, sparingly spotted and 

 blotched with rufous red, brownish and light hazel in form of an indis- 

 tinct wreath about large end and few scattering marks over rest of 



