JOURNAL OF MAINE ORNITHOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 35 



River, on a small wooded island, contained five eggs on June 2nd, 

 1896. Three other nests, containing four and five eggs, were found 

 in similar situations on the sam« island, which was not over two 

 acres in extent. These nests were all at heights of six to eight 

 feet, in forks around which small, bushy shoots had sprung up, and 

 near the shores of the island. The one first mentioned is composed 

 of fine, silken vegetable fibers, willow cotton, and fine threadlike 

 bark, mixed with numerous spiders' cocoons, held together with 

 spider's web, and lined with fine grass and a few feathers. This 

 nest is three inches in depth outside, by one and a half inside; the 

 outside diameter is three, and the inside diameter, one and a half 

 inches. The eggs measure 0.69x0.51, 0.66x0.49, 0.66x0.50, 0.67 

 XO.50, 0.66 X 0.50. In general, the nests are always well cupped and 

 firmly and compactly built, having a very distinctive appearance, as 

 a rule. Four or five eggs seems to be the usual number laid. The 

 ground color varies from white to greenish or grayish white, speckled 

 and spotted with cinnamon and olive brown and lilac gray. Some 

 eggs are spotted quite evenly all over, but all have a tendency to be 

 most heavily marked toward the larger ends, the marks being 

 arranged in a circle about the crowns of the eggs. Usually the 

 spots are fine, so that the eggs are not wreathed b}^ a confluence of 

 the spots, but I have seen eggs as heavily wreathed as those of the 

 Yellow Warbler. 



In general it takes a week or ten days to build the nest, and the 

 female attends to this as well as the task of incubation. I am not 

 aware that the male feeds her while on the nest, though he is gener- 

 ally singing not far distant. It seems often the case that where the 

 male bird is brighter colored and more apt to attract attention he 

 does not venture near the nest, as a rule, but when harm threatens, 

 the cries and calls of his mate speedily bring him to take his share 

 of the trouble. I have seen a male Redstart feed the young after 

 they had left the nest and very rarely indeed carry food to them 

 when they were nearly ready to leave. The incubation period is 

 sometimes only twelve days, though I have known it to take four- 

 teen for the eggs to hatch. The young leave the nest in fourteen 

 days, as a rule. Only one brood is reared in a season with us. The 

 female carries away the excreta of the young in her bill and drops 

 these at some distance from the nest. 



