126 NESTS AND EGGS OF BIEDS. 



The Museum of Comparative Zoology has recently received a nest and four 

 eggs of the ccerulean warbler (^Deiulroeca cccrnlea) collected at East Penfield, 

 Munroe county, N. Y., June 7, 1878, by Mr. P. S. Fuller. The female was 

 shot as she left the eggs, which were nearly fresh. The nest was placed in 

 the fork of a small ash-tree, al)out twenty-five feet from the ground. It is 

 neatly and compactly built, consisting externally of fine dry grasses of an 

 ashen tint, l)ound firmly together with spider's silk, to which are affixed a few 

 bits of whitish lichen; it is lined with strips of bark and fine grasses of a 

 reddish brown color. The nest is thus gray externally and brown within. It 

 measures as follows: inside diameter, 2 inches; outside diameter, 2.50 inches; 

 depth inside, 1.40; external depth, 1.75. The eggs vary little in size or color, 

 and mainly in respect to the size of the blotches. The ground color is dull 

 creamy white, thickly covered with rather heavy blotches of reddish brown. 

 In one egg the blotches are coarse and cover the greater part of the surface; 

 in another the markings are finer, quite evenly diffused, and of a lighter tint; 

 in the other two about two-thirds of the surface is covered by the markings. 

 The eggs measure .60 by .47 of an inch. 



The Museum has also two other nests of this species. One was taken, with 

 one egg, at Drummondsville, Ontario, in June, 1873, and, with the egg, was 

 soon after described by Dr. Brewer (Hist. N. Amer. Birds, Vol. Ill, p. 505). 

 The other nest was taken at Mount Carmel, Illinois, May 16, 1878, by Mr. 

 WilUam Bryant, of Boston. It contained four eggs, which are now in his 

 collection. The nest described by Dr. Brewer differs from the Penfield nest 

 in no essential point, except that it is rather slighter and has a more nearly 

 continuous covering of lichen, with which are mixed small pieces of hornet's 

 nest. The bottom of the nest shows that it was built in the fork of a small 

 branch. The Mount Carmel nest differs from the others in having somewhat 

 thicker walls, thus giving to the structure greater bulk and firmness. Like 

 the others, it is partly covered externally with lichens, which enclose some of 

 the smaller twigs amidst which it is fixed to the upper surface of a small 

 branch. These nests agree as closely in their general structure, as well as in 

 the material of their composition, as .three nests of the same species are of I en 

 found to do, and differ quite widely from the nests of any other species of the 

 genus known to me. The Penfield and Mount Carmel nests were placed 

 respectively twenty and twenty-five feet from the ground, and the Drum- 

 mondsville nest at a height of fifty feet. 



Audubon describes the nest of the ca^rulean warbler as j^laced in the forks 

 of a low tree or bush, and as being partly pensile, and the eggs as being pure 

 white, with a few reddish spots about the larger end. In the light of present 

 information, Audubon's description is evidently erroneous in nearly every par- 

 ticular. The only other description of the nest and eggs of this species is 

 that given by Dr. Brewer, as already stated. 



Dr. Brewer describes the egg as somewhat similar in its general appearance 



