I20 NESTS AXD EGGS OF BIBDS. 



bier is derived from the older writers, — Thomas Nuttall first of all, 

 who relates the matter in these words : 



In the summer of 1830, however, on the Stli of June, I was so fortunate as 

 to find a nest of this species in a perfectly solitary situation, on the Blue Hills 

 of Milton [near Boston]. The female was now sitting, and about to hatch. 

 The nest was in a low, thick and stunted Virginia juniper. When I approached 

 near to the nest, the female stood motionless on its edge, and peeped down in 

 such a manner that I imagined her to be a young bird : she then darted di- 

 rectly to the earth and ran, but when, deceived, I sought her on the ground, 

 she had very expertly disappeared; and I now found the nest to contain four 

 roundish eggs, white, inclining to flesh-color, variegated, more particularly at 

 the great end, with pale, purplish points of various sizes, interspersed with 

 other large spots of brown and blackish. The nest was formed of circularly 

 entwined fine strips of the inner bark of the juniper, and the tough, white, 

 fibrous bark of some other plant, then bedded with soft feathers of the robin, 

 and lined with a few horse-hairs, and some slender tops of bent-grass . . . 

 In the whole district of this extensive hill or mountain, in Milton, there 

 appeared to exist no other pair of these lonely warblers but the present. An- 

 other pair, however, had probably a nest in the vicinity of the woods of Mount 

 Auburn in Cambridge: and in the spring of the present year (1831) several 

 pair of these birds were seen for a transient period. 



Describing specimens in the National Museum, Doctors Brewer 

 and Coues both refer to nests taken at Lynn and Roxbury, Massa- 

 chusetts. Of the former, it is said : "It is composed, first, of fine 

 twigs in small bits, then of various soft, pliant, fibrous substances, 

 composing the bulk of the nest and lined with fine grasses and 

 rootlets. The substance contains also a few feathers and some 

 downy material .... This nest measured a little over three 

 inches across by n?arly two in depth, and is rather neatly and com- 

 pactly finished. Another nest, from West Roxbury, Massachusetts, 

 is smaller and deeper, as well as less regular in contour, having 

 apparently been placed in an oblique fork." 



Eggs of this warbler on record give an average measurement of 

 about .70 by .52. They are white or creamy in ground color, and 

 agree with Mr. Nuttall's description given above ; but the wreathing 

 of the spots about the large end seems to be a pretty constant 

 character. 



