8 J(Jl'RNAI. '"■ ^^ \ I VI "t.- \ i r Hi >i < w vie AI, SOCIETY. 



inside cavity one inch, ilianieler at liuttoni outside two and a halt 

 inches, diameter of cavity across top one and a half inches. This 

 particular nest was situated in a small bunch of alders thirty-three 

 inches from the ground in a bushy meadow alonp the Stillwater 

 River at Orono. The eggs are of a greenish-white ground color, 

 very heavily wreathed with cinnamon brown, black and lilac about 

 the larger end, and measure 0.66x0.52, 0.67x0.51, 0.67x0.51, 

 0.68 X 0.5 1 . Other eggs seen sometimes have a bluish-white ground 

 color, and the markings are sometimes more inclined to umber 

 brown, (lenerally the eggs are wreathed alx)ut the larger end 

 rather heavily. I)nt sometimes the eggs are only slightly or not at all 

 wreathed, and while nearly always a few small sjxjts are loosely scat- 

 tered over the surface, sometimes the whole surface is quite evenly 

 dotted. Nest building, in which Ixith parents assist, requires a pe- 

 riod varving from a week to ten days, and fresh eggs may be found 

 from June i>t to even as late as early July. It seems quite likely 

 that these late sets may result from the birds having been roblnrd 

 or otherwise disturbed in their first efforts. Sometimes a Cowbird 

 de{X)sits its egg in a Yellow Warbler's nest, in which ca.se they often 

 build a new nest on top of the old one. thus effectually stifling the in- 

 truding egg, or desert the site entirely. Rarely when their own eggs 

 are incubated they will accept the egg of the intruder. Four or five 

 eggs are usually laid, an egg generally being deiwisited each day ; 

 though rarely, sometimes a day is passed without laying. In some 

 instances the bird l>cgins to incubate as soon as the first egg is laid, 

 while in other cases incubation h.is not seemed to Ix* conunenced in 

 earnest until a day or two after the last egg was laid. In cases 

 under ol»servation the incubation peViod has .seemed to range from 

 twelve to fifteen days from the time of laying of the first egg to the 

 hatching of the first young, in cases where the birds .seemed to have 

 actually iKgun incubating as soon as an egg was laid. Owing to 

 lack of time to obser\'e them closely, the exact cause of variation 

 cannot be given, but it seems quite possible that difference in j>er- 

 sistence in incubating may account for the discrepancy. The young 

 birds are naked when hatched, but within two days are covered with 

 mouse-gray down. The first pin feathers apj>car at the end of about 

 six days, and in a period varying from fifteen to twenty days they 

 are readv to leave the nest. The food of the parents consists of 

 small soft larvie of Icpidoptera, such as canker worms, tortricids and 

 sin\ilar larva- which they also feed their young in considerable 

 ainouiU, in addition to which small beetles and bugs of almost any 



