AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 91 



separates him from the somewhat similar marked black and white 

 Warbler. The female is greenish gray above streaked with black but 

 with no black crown. The underparts are less distinctly streaked with 

 black. Winter adults and young are very dull colored birds, brownish 

 gray above and buffy below with indistinct dusky streaks. 



NESTING HABITS. 



Nests of this species are usually placed at low elevation among the 

 outer branches of spruces; they have been found at elevations of from 

 five to ten feet usually in swampy localities. The nests are made of 

 slender twigs, rootlets, mosses ect., and lined with fine grasses or 

 black rootlets. The four eggs are dull white, usually blotched and 

 specked with various shades of brown. 



HABITS. 



Black-polls are one of the most abundant birds during migration 

 and are met with in woods, orchard or swamp. They seem 

 very slow motioned compared to the agility displayed by most of the 

 family, and attention is usually attracted to them by their rather faint 

 and jerky "zee-zee" slowly repeated about seven times; it is a song re- 

 minding one of an insect, most resembling that of the black and white 

 Warbler but very much slower. In the fall when the adults return, re- 

 enforced by their young, they are the most abundant bird that we have 

 and are found in flocks everywhere. Owing to their very obscure 

 plumage they are very hard to separate from several other species at 

 this season. 



BLACKBURNIAN WARBLER. 



A. O U. No. 662. (Deiulroi<-,i blHckbui-niae.) 



RANGE. 



These Warblers breed in the higher portions of northern United 

 States and in southern Canada. They are konwn to nest as far south as 

 central Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania and a few breed in 

 the Alleghanies to the Carolinas. Their winter quarters are chiefly ia 

 northern South America. 



DESCRIPTION. 



Length, 5.5 inches. Being the only North American warbler except 

 the Redstart to have any amount of orange in its plumage the male of 



