382 NOTES ON THE 



was watching the movements of the ducks, thus affording me 

 the amplest opportunities for seeing them, some of them coming 

 within a yard of me at such times. Some of these flocks would 

 amount to more than two hundred, and the least one I ever un 

 dertook to estimate, was somewhat more than twenty. The 

 quantities of minute insects and larvae destroyed by this 

 species alone, must be something simply marvelous. Any 

 winged forms at this early season could scarcely escape them, 

 for while not so nervously active as some of the later warblers, 

 they were unerring in their fly-catcher-like seizure of them in 

 the air. Their movements whether climbing about for larvae 

 and insects, or flitting out after a winged form, are easy, grace- 

 ful, and always restful to witness, which is more than can be 

 said of most other warblers and fly-catchers. 



Note. Since the most of the foregoing was written I have 

 found some nests of the Myrtle Warblers in the northern and 

 northwestern sections of the State, and more of the young, in 

 early August, leaving the question of their breeding within the 

 limits of the area of my inquiries at rest in my own mind. The 

 nest is in a small tree or large bush, about six or seven feet 

 from the ground, and the structure consists of fine roots, 

 grasses, stalks of weeds, and the fibrous bark of different kinds 

 of woods and coarse weeds, and is lined very neatly with fine 

 roots, hair and feathers. It is not quite as bulky as the nests 

 of some other warblers, but is very firm and well built. The 

 eggs are four in number, ashy white, dotted all over with two 

 shades of brown, darkest about the larger end. I cannot think 

 they bring out a second brood. The young of this species were 

 found by Mr. Washburn at the Thief river in August. 



SPECIFIC characters. 



Above, blueish ash, streaked with black; under parts white; 

 forepart of breast and sides black, the feathers mostly edged 

 with white; crown, rump and sides of breast yellow; cheeks 

 and lores black; eyelids and a superciliary stripe, two bands 

 on the wing, and spots on the outer three tail feathers, white. 



Length, 5.65; wing, 3; tail, 2.50. 



Habitat, eastern North America. 



DENDROICA MACULOSA (Gmelin). (657.) 



MAGNOLIA WARBLER. 



It has always been difficult to explain the circumstance of my 

 obtaining this species in 1869, on the 27th day of April, the 

 habit of the species being almost unexceptionally rather on the 

 other extreme of arrivals. It varies also extremely in the 

 numerical character of its migrations, some years being very 



