136 NESTS AND EGGS OF BIBDS. 



When you approach a nest the female remains in perfect quiet 

 until you can almost touch her with a cautious hand ; and exhibits 

 little anxiety when her treasures are removed. If a pair think 

 themselves discovered, however, before their nest is completed 

 they will stop work and lay new foundations ; yet so attached are 

 they to a certain locality, probably their homestead of the pre- 

 vious year, that the new nest may be placed in the very same bush, 

 ::nd even on the same twig as the one abandoned. Their judgment 

 that it is not safe to dwell in a nest which is known to their enemy, 

 the bird's-nesting naturalist, leads them far enough to desert it and 

 build anew in hoped-for secrecy ; but does not go far enough (at 

 least in many cases) to teach them that the new site should be 

 remote from the former one. 



"The parent sits very closely upon its nest; if disturbed, it 

 refuses to move farther than a few feet, there remaining quite silent, 

 except a soft, pleading note occasionally repeated." 



84. THE BLACK-AND-YELLOW WARBLER. 



DENDRCECA MACULOSA {Gm.) Baird. 

 Magnolia "Warbler; Spotted Warbler; Spotted Canada "Warbler. 



The sprightly magnolia warbler spreads in summer over all the 

 Eastern Province of North America, north to the Hudson's Bay 

 region, breeding from New England and the Catskills northward. 

 It has also been found in Colorado. 



Many nests of this warbler have been found by ornithologists, 

 and several careful descriptions are extant. It arrives in its breed- 

 ing haunts in northern New York and New England, about the 

 third week of May, and at once proceeds to build its nest among 

 the unfolding buds. Some dates at which eggs have been found 

 are : at Unbagog Lake, Me., June 7 to 15 ; Isle of Grand Menan, 

 June 27 (embryos advanced); Labrador, "beginning of July;" 

 Great Slave lake, June 12. The nest is usually placed in a small 

 fir or spruce, rarely at a greater elevation than five or six feet, and 

 sometimes only a few inches from the ground ; but, on the other 



