15S J\^ESTS AXD EGGS OF BIBDS. 



from which the bird flew. This I did, and, returning, had little difficulty in 

 discovering the nest. It was placed but a few feet from the maple tree, in 

 a bunch of ferns, and about six inches from the ground. It was quite a 

 massive nest, composed entirely of the stalks and leaves of dry grass, with an 

 inner lining of fine, dark-brown roots. The eggs, three in number, were of 

 light flesh-color, uniformly speckled with fine, brown specks. The cavity of 

 the nest was so deep that the back of the sittmg bird sank below the edge. 



The mourning warbler breeds commonly in northern New Eng- 

 land and Canada, and as far west as the Red river of the North, 

 where it is abundant in the thickets, and the young appear late 

 in June. The few accounts of nests and eggs available confirm 

 Mr. Burroughs' record fully; but Dr. Coues, judging from sev- 

 eral suites collected by Ridgw^ay, decides that the eggs " lack 

 the sharp speckling of reddish brown found mostly throughout 

 this family, being variously blotched, in an entirely irregular man- 

 ner, with very dark brown, and smirched with several shades of 

 lighter dirty brown, together with some obscure neutral shell- 

 markings ; the ground is white as usual. Extremes of size and 

 shape which have offered are .70 by .50 and .65 by .52. 



89. MACGILLIVRAY'S GROUND WARBLER. 



GEOTHLYPIS MACGILLIVRAYI {Aud.) Bd. 

 ■Western Yellow Throat. 



This warbler, by many ornithologists perhaps properly con- 

 sidered only a variety of the foregoing, replaces the mourning 

 warbler in the West, being found from the Plains to the Pacific 

 Ocean and northward to British Columbia. It breeds through- 

 out this area, in rather greater numbers than does the other species 

 in the East. 



"Any patch of shnibbery or tangled growth of bushes,'" says 

 Henshaw, " is sure to be selected as the summer abode of one 

 or more pairs of these birds. From such localities in the low 

 valleys, they follow the streams upward as they flow from the 

 mountains; and up to the altitude of about 9,000 feet, tlie 



