SENNETT'S WARBLER. lOI 



to build, but It is about the second week in June before their eggs 

 are laid. They are firmly attached to chosen localities and 

 endeavor to build again and again in the same tree. The eggs, 

 four or five in number, are clear white, sparsely spotted with 

 markings of reddish-brown, slate, purple and lilac. In some, 

 blotches of the first predominate ; in others, the last three 

 shades, usually formmg a confluent ring around the larger end. 

 They measure .63 to .70 in length and .49 to .57 in breadth. 

 When the nest is disturbed the parents make little complaint. 



(PI. IX. Fig. 58.) 



58bis. SENNETT'S WARBLER. 

 PARULA NIGRILORA Coues. 



This new warbler, discovered by Mr. George B. Sennett on 

 the lower Rio Grande in 1877, has a very limited range, so 

 far as known, in the immediate vicinity of the mouth of that 

 river, and probably southwestward. All the information ob- 

 tained that year was a published note by Dr. J. C. Merrill, 

 U. S. A., who found its nest, July 5, about five miles from Fort 

 Brown. " It was placed in a small thin bunch of hanging moss, 

 about ten feet from the ground, in a thicket ; was simply hol- 

 lowed out of the moss, of which it was entirely composed, with 

 the exception of three or four horsehairs ; entrance on side ; 

 contained three young, al)out half-fledged." 



Largely induced by the hope of finding out more, Mr. Sen- 

 net repeated his trip to Texas in 1878, and was not disappointed. 

 He has kindly communicated to me observations in manuscript 

 in advance of his own publication, and I am able to make up 

 a tolerably full history of the species. Mr. Sennet says : 



I found these warblers not uncommon ; and. by the middle ol' May, 

 was made anxious by finding that dissection of females showed their 

 eggs to be only just developing, while my feime of departure was near. 

 But on May 17, my Mexican guide. Pancho, brought in the most in- 

 teresting and peculiar nest I had seen in that locality, together with 

 cne broken t%%. which was none other than that of this new warbler; 



