I40 KESTS AND EGGS OF BIBDS. 



just spoken of was in a young spruce tree, breast high and con- 

 tained one fresh egg. The nest was left in order to obtain a full 

 set of eggs, but a second visit found the tree cut down, a "clearing" 

 having been started. 



Eggs in the Smithsonian Institution are described by Mr. 

 Ridgway as oval in form, dull white in color with blotches of lilac, 

 spots and occasional scraggy lines of black around the larger end ; 

 dimensions, .75 by .55." 



86. THE PRAIRIE WARBLER. 



DENDRCECA DISCOLOR (F.) Baird. 

 Ked-backed "Warbler (Jamaica) ; Particolored "Warbler. 



Though nowhere abundant, this warbler may be met with during 

 migrations, at least, over all the United States between the Missis- 

 sippi and southern New England. 



Breeding along the whole Atlantic coast, its nidification was de- 

 scribed by all the early writers, but the accounts show great differ- 

 ences. My own experience is so brief, and Dr. T. M. Brewer, in 

 the History of North American Birds, has summed up the matter 

 so completely, that I prefer to copy his remarks almost as a whole : 



Both Wilson and Audubon were evidently at fault in their descriptions of 

 the nest and eggs. These do not correspond with more recent and positive 

 observations. Its nest is never pensile. Mr. Nuttall's descriptions, on the 

 other hand, are made from his own observations, and are evidently correct. 

 He describes a nest that came under his observation, as scarcely distinguish- 

 able from that of the Z>. cestiva. It was not pensile, but fixed in a forked 

 branch, and formed of strips of the inner bark of the red-cedar, fibres of 

 asclepias, and caterpillar's silk, and thickly lined with the down of the Gna- 

 phalium plantagineum. He describes the eggs as having a white ground, 

 sharp at one end, and marked with spots of lilac-purple and of two shades of 

 brown, more numerous at the larger end, where they formed a ring. He 

 speaks of their note as slender, and noticed their arrival about the second 

 week of May, leaving the middle of September. 



At another time Mr. Nuttall was attracted by the slender, filing notes of this 

 bird, resembling the suppressed syllables 'tsh-tsh-tsh-tshea, beginning low 



