6 AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 



NEST AND EGGS. 



For the nesting habits of this handsome little bird we will quote from 

 Mr. Wm. L. Kells, the veteran Canadian writer, he having studied 

 their nesting habits for a great many years on his farm in Ontario. 



The mourning warbler though not abundant in any district, is yet 

 pretty widely distributed over the province of Ontario, as well as other 

 divisions of eastern Canada, but it is among the last of the family to 

 announce its vernal advent amid the wild scenery of its summer haunts. 

 In March it begins its northward journey, but two months pass away 

 before it reaches the terminus of its winged voyage in the regions of 

 its northern range, and summer home, and here begins one of the chief 

 objects of its migration movements /. e. the propagation of its species, 

 and when the period in which this can only be done is over the impulses 

 to return towards the south seem strong, and to yield to the impulses 

 of nature in this matter is not long delayed; for by the middle of 

 September , if not earlier, all this species and its genus have disap- 

 peared; though some individuals may linger longer amid the scenery of 

 their summer haunts in the thicket and the swamp, than is now known. 



The haunts and home of the mourning warbler, during the period of 

 its residence in Canada, are generally on the margins of low-land 

 woods, or second-growth swamps, where there is an intermingling of 

 young underwood, fallen brush, and raspberry vines. It may also 

 occasionally be found to frequent wooded ravines, the sides of brush- 

 covered hills, and the margins of muddy creeks which meander their 

 courses through what was called "beaver-meadows," where there are 

 deep concealments; and here, amid the deep foliage, one strain of the 

 song-notes of the male of this species, may often be heard, in the mid- 

 summer days, while the little performer itself is invisible. At times he 

 will rise to a considerable elevation, and after a pleasing performance 

 of quite a different series of musical notes, in the ventilation of which 

 he appears to take much pleasure and pride, and during which he 

 makes a rain-bow like circuit, and takes a rapid descent into the 

 thicket below, near where it is probable the female has a nesting 

 place. 



During the past twenty years a number of the nests of the mourning 

 warbler have come under my observation, and the finding of these has 

 been rather accidental than the results of continuous field and forest 

 research; but the last of these noted up to the end of the season of 

 1902, is the first to which attention will here be directed. On the 8th 

 of June, 1902, when strolling across a piece of recently cleared fallow, 

 now over-grown with raspberry vines, on the northwest corner of 



