DELAWARE VALLEY ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 39 



After leaving the Pine Point we went straight to the Pine 

 Warbler's tree. With my glass I surveyed the supposed nest 

 for several minutes. No sign of a bird was visible, but a knock 

 on the tree brought the bird down, tumbling almost into my 

 arms. Even for a bird mother it was a most peculiar artifice. 

 Like a dropping plummet she fell straight to the earth, flutter- 

 ing to a log a few yards distance from my feet. This log strad- 

 pled a pool of water. On it she crouched, acting the broken 

 wing in motion, a pathetic picture of trembling love boldl}' act- 

 ing deception. At last, seeming to realize she could not draw 

 me away, she walked lamely into the swamp, plaj'ing the game 

 to the very last. Later she appeared on a neighboring pine, an 

 actor no longer but a silent spectator of my movements. It is 

 remarkable that during several hours spent about this nest I 

 onl}' once saw the male, and never heard a note from either 

 bird. 



Not till I had climbed the tree was I sure of the position of 

 the nest. It was placed within a foot of the top about thirty 

 feet from the ground, fourteen inches from the trunk, and sad- 

 dled on a short branch. The tree was a pitch pine {Pinus 

 rigida), seven inches in diameter at the base. For fifteen feet 

 there was not a limb, and then only small ones, ten in all, giv- 

 ing the tree at its widest point a width of eight feet. Despite 

 the absence of limbs there was an obvious reason why the nest 

 was so difficult to detect. The cones on the tree were bunched 

 near the top, and the nest was placed directly in their midst, 

 not dissimilar from them in breadth at the bottom. A thick 

 network of pine spills, five to six inches long, screened it below 

 and above, forming a mass of umbrage impossible to pierce. 

 This considered with the secretive movements and surprising 

 artifices of the bird make it clear why the nest is so seldom 

 discovered. 



The materials of the nest might be described in the words of 

 Mr. R. B. M'Laughlin in an article entitled " Nesting of the Pine 

 Creeping Warbler" : "The outer portion consists of long, thin 

 strips of bark from grapevine, bits of dead weeds, and the stems 

 of dry oak leaves, intermixed with a very tine silken web or 

 cocoon which the bird gathers from openings in the pine bark; 



