242 NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



card took it at Oaxaca. It has been obtained in Guatemala and Jamaica. In 

 the latter place it is found the entire season. In Cuba, in the winter, it is 

 quite common. It has also been found in St. Domingo, and probably in the 

 other West India Islands. Mr. Gosse states that these birds do not appear in 

 Jamaica before the 16th of August, and that they leave by the first of April. 

 On the other hand, Mr. March, in his notes on the birds of that island, states 

 that on the 8th of August he obtained an old bird and two young, the latter 

 of which he was confident liad been hatched on the island, and his son had 

 met with the birds all through the summer, and had procured a specimen on 

 ■the 4th of June. 



Wilson states that the haljits of this species partake more of those of the 

 Creeper than of the true Warbler. He met with it in Georgia in the niontli 

 of Pebruary. He speaks of its notes as loud, and as resembling those of the 

 Indigo-Bird. It remained some time creeping around the branches of the 

 same pine, in the manner of a Parus, uttering its song every few minutes. 

 When it flew to another tree, it would alight on the trunk and run nimbly 

 up and down in search of insects. They are said to arrive in Georgia in 

 February, after an absence of only three months. Wilson states tliat they 

 occur as far north as Pennsylvania, but does not give his authority. The 

 food of this species appears to be larvse and i)upse, rather than winged insects. 

 Those dissected by Mr. Gosse in Jamaica were found to have quite large 

 stomachs, containing caterpillars of various kinds. 



Nuttall and Audubon are very contradictory in their statements touching- 

 its nesting, and it is not probable that the accounts given by either are 

 founded upon any reliable authorities. The former describes a nest remark- 

 able both for structure and situation, said to have been found in West Flor- 

 ida, suspended by a kind of rope from the end of branches over a stream 

 or a ravine. Tliis nest, entirely pensile, is impervious to rain, and with an 

 entrance at the bottom. He gives a very full and minute description of this 

 nest, but gives no authority and no data to establish its authenticity. We 

 can therefore only dismiss it as probably erroneous. 



On the other hand, Mr. Audulion claims to have seen its nest, of M'hich he 

 gives a very different account. He describes it as very prettily constructed, 

 like the nests of any other of this genus, its outer parts made of dry lichens 

 and soft mosses, the inner of silky substances and fibres of the Spanish moss. 

 The eggs are said to be four in number, with a white ground-color and a few 

 purple dots near the larger end. He thinks they raise two broods in a sea- 

 son in Louisiana. These nests are not pensile, but are placed on the horizon- 

 tal branch of the cypress, from twenty to fifty feet above the ground. It 

 closely resembles a knot or a tuft of moss, and therefore is not easily discov- 

 ered from below. 



A nest containing a single egg, found by Mr. Gosse near Neosho Falls, and 

 supposed to belong to this species, but not fully identified, was built in a low 

 sapling a few feet from the ground, and is a very neat structure, such as is 



