THE GREEN WAIIBLER. • 1x9 



blackbird {Molothrus ate/). In case it suffers by the desecration 

 of a new nest, as yet untenanted by its own eggs, it will abandon 

 the structure, and build a second one : or else, unable to tumble the 

 egg out, and unwilling to seek a new homestead, it will bury the 

 offensive deposit under a thick layer of hemp or cotton, and atop 

 of this floor raise the walls and furniture cf a second-storied nest. 

 But I reserve a discussion of this remarkable example of warbler- 

 sagacity until I come to my chapter upon the baleful intruder 

 himself, under the family Icteridae. 



The eggs of the summer yellowbird are five in number, usually, 

 and easily described. Upon a greenish ground, they show a 

 speckling, chiefly about the large end, in various degrees of 

 amount and interfusion, in tints of dull brownish red, brown, lilac 

 and purple. Some of these marks are dots, others are blotches, 

 sometimes they form a wreath and often not ; upon the whole, the 

 tgg is characteristic among those of its family chiefly on account 

 of its dulness of pattern. In those eggs from the Rocky moun- 

 tains to the Pacific coast, however, there seems to be a constant 

 lack in the ground-color of that greenish tinge which characterizes 

 all eastern examples that I have ever seen, — a green sometimes 

 very decided. In length they will average about .66 of an inch, 

 and in breadth .50. 



In the south and on the Pacific, two, and occasionally three, 

 broods are reared in a season ; but in the northern states more than 

 one laying is rare. 



71. THE GREEN WARBLER. 



DENDRCECA VIRENS (Gmelin) Baird. 



Black-throated Green "Warbler or Flycatcher; Pauvette a cravate noire 

 (Canada). 



Spread in the migrating season over all eastern North America, 

 as far as the Missouri, in the breeding season it is only seen from 

 the mountain ranges of the middle states, and central New England, 

 northward to Hudson's bay. 



The little that is known of the obscure summer-life of this war- 



