THE BAY-BBEASTED WABBLEB. 133 



Two nests of this species, from Great Slave lake and Fort Yukon, 

 in the Smithsonian Institution, closely resembling each other, were 

 taken in June, one with four, the other with five eggs. They are 

 built of soft weedy material, bleached and gray, and withered al- 

 most to disintegration, mixed with grasses, and lined with finer 

 stems of the same. 



The only nest Audubon found afforded him such intense satisfac- 

 tion that it is no more than fair to allow him space for his own 

 words. The locaUty is Little Macatina Harbor, Labrador. 



One fair morning while several of us were scrambling through one of the 

 thickets of trees scarcely waist high, my youngest son chanced to scare from 

 her nest a female of the black-poll warbler. Reader, just fancy how this 

 raised my spirits. I felt as if the enormous expense of our voyage had been 

 refunded. "There," said I, "we are the first white men who have seen such 

 a nest." I peeped into it, saw that it contained four eggs, and observed its 

 little owner looking upon us in anxiety and astonishment. It was placed 

 about three feet from the ground, in the fork of a small branch, close to the 

 main stem of a fir tree. Its diameter internally was two inches, the depth 

 one and a half. Externally it resembled the nest of the white-crowned spar- 

 row, being formed of green and white moss and lichens, intermixed with 

 coarse dried grass. Within this was a layer of bent grass, and the lining was 

 of a very dark-colored dry moss, looking precisely like horsehair, arranged in 

 a circular direction with great care. Lastly there was a thick bed of large 

 soft feathers, some of which were from ducks, but most of them from willow 

 grouse. 



The eggs of the black-poll are pure white, "blotched and dotted 

 over the entire surface with profuse markings of a subdued lav- 

 ender, and deeper markings of a dark purple intermixed with 

 lighter spots of reddish brown." They measure about .72 by .50 

 of an inch. Five or six are laid. 



82. THE BAY-BREASTED WARBLER. 



DENDRCECA CASTANEA {Wils.) Baird. 

 Autumnal "Warbler (young). 



The habitat of this species includes the United States east of the 

 Lower Missouri river ; but through the most of this region it is 



