270 NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



more from the ground, and is usually fastened to the twigs of a small branch. 

 In Massachusetts it has but a single brood in a season, but at the South 

 it is said to have three. 



The flight of this Warbler is short, and exhibits undulating curves of great 

 elegance. Its song is described as monotonous, consisting merely of contin- 

 uous and tremulovis sounds. Mr. Audubon found none beyond New Bruns- 

 wick, and it has never been found in Nova Scotia so far as I am aware. 



Both old and young birds remain in Massachusetts until late in October, 

 and occasionally birds are seen as far to the north as Philadelphia in mid- 

 winter. At this season they abound in the pine forests of the Soutliern States, 

 where they are at that time the most numerous of the Warblers, and where 

 some are to be found throughout the year. 



In the summer their food consists of the larvae and eggs of certain kinds 

 of insects. In the aiitujnn they frequent the Southern gardens, feeding on 

 the berries of the cornel, the box grape, and other small fruit. Mr. Nuttall 

 states that their song is deficient both in compass and in variety, though not 

 disagreeable. At times, he states, it approaches the simpler trills of the 

 canary ; but is usually a reverberating, gently rising or murmuring sound like 

 er-r'-r'r'r'r'r'-ah, or in the springtime like tive twc-tw ho tiv-tw tv.\ and some- 

 times like tsh-tsh-tsh-tw-tw-tw-tiv, exhibiting a pleasing variety in its ca- 

 dences. The note of the female is not unlike that of the Black and White 

 Creeper. 



On the 7th of June, Mr. Nuttall discovered a nest of this Warbler in a Vir- 

 ginia juniper-tree in Mount Auburn, some forty feet from the ground, and 

 firmly fixed in the upright twigs of a close branch. It was a thin but very 

 neat structure. Its principal material was the old and wiry stems of tlie 

 Polygonum tenue, or knot-weed. These were circularly interlaced and inter- 

 wound with rougli linty fibres of asclepias and caterpillars' webs. It was 

 lined with a few bristles, slender root-fibres, a mat of the down of fern-stalks, 

 and a few feathers. Mr. Nuttall saw several of these nests, all made in a 

 similar manner. The eggs in the nest described were four, and far advanced 

 towards hatching. They were white, with a slight tinge of green, and were 

 freely sprinkled with small pale-brown spots, most numerous at the larger 

 end, where they were aggregated on a more purplish ground. The female 

 made some slight complaint, but immediately returned to the nest, thougli 

 two of the eggs liad been taken. 



Mr. Nuttall kept a male of this species in confinement. It at once be- 

 came very tame, fed gratefully from the hand, from the moment it was 

 caught, on flies, small earthworms, and minced flesh, and would sit con- 

 tentedly on any hand, walking directly into a dish of water offered for drink, 

 without any precautions, or any signs of fear. 



Mr. J. G. Shute found a nest of these Warblers in Woburn as early as 

 May 8. It contained four eggs, the incubation of which had commenced. 

 Three other nests were also found by him in the same locality, all of them 



