THE PEAIBIE WABBLEB. 141 



and gradually growing louder. With its mate, it was busily engaged collect- 

 ing flies and larvie among a clump of locust trees in Mount Auburn. Their 

 nest was near, and the female, without any precautions, went directly to it. 

 Mr. Nuttall removed two eggs, which he afterward replaced. Each time on 

 his withdrawal, she returned to the nest, and resorted to no expedients to en- 

 tice him away. 



Several nests of this warbler have been obtained by Mr. Welch in Lynn. 

 One was built on a wild rose, only a few feet from the ground. It is a snug, 

 compact, and elaborately woven structure, having a height and a diameter of 

 about two and one-half inches. The cavity is two inches wide and one and 

 one-half deep. The materials of which the outer parts are woven are chiefly 

 the soft inner bark of small shrubs, mingled with dry rose-leaves, bits of veg- 

 etable wool, woody fibres, decayed stems of plants, spiders' webs, etc. The 

 whole is bound together Uke a web by cotton-like fibres of a vegetable origin. 

 The upper rim of this nest is a marked feature, being a strongly interlaced 

 weaving of vegetable roots and strips of bark. The lining of the nest is com- 

 posed of fine vegetable fibres and a few horse-hairs. This nest, in its general 

 mode of construction, resembles all that I have seen; only in others the ma- 

 terials vary — in some dead and decayed leaves, in others remains of old 

 cocoons, and in others the pappus of composite plants being more prominent 

 than the fine strips of bark. The nests are usually within four feet of the 

 ground. The eggs vary from three to five, and even six. 



The late Dr. Gerhardt found this bird the most common warbler in northern 

 Georgia. There its nests were similar in size, structure and position, but dif- 

 fered more or less in the materials of which they were made. The nests were 

 a trifle larger, and the walls thinner, the cavities being correspondingly larger. 

 The materials were more invariably fine strips of inner bark and flax-like veg- 

 etable fibres, and were lined with the finest stems of plants, in one case with 

 the feathers of the great horned-owl. In that neighborhood the eggs were 

 deposited by the 15th of May. 



In Massachusetts the prairie warbler invariably selects wild pasture land, 

 often not far from villages, and always open or very thinly wooded. In 

 Georgia their nests were built in almost every kind of bush or low tree, or on 

 the lower limb of post-oaks, at the height of from four to seven feet. Eggs 

 were found once as early as the 2nd of May, and once as late as the loth of 

 June. They arrived there by the loth of April, and seemed to prefer hill- 

 sides, but were found in almost any open locality. 



In southern Illinois, Mr. Ridgway cites this species as a rather rare bird 

 among the oak-barrens where it breeds. 



The eggs are of an oval shape, pointed at one end, and measure .68 by .48 

 of an inch. They have a white ground, marked with spots of lilac and pur- 

 ple, and two shades of umber brown. 



