,36 AMERICAN AVARBLERS. 



protective livery, and are exceedingly abundant, they do not 

 visit tlie orchards as often as in spring, but frequent the !o\v 

 gray birches, evidently being attracted to them by the large 

 numbers of green plant lice which then infest these trees. 



B??.EEDiN3 H \BiTS, I found the Black-polled Warblers 

 breeding very commonly in the thick forests of stunted ever- 

 green trees on th" wind-swept Tslagdalen Islands. These trees, 

 probably from the effects of some parasite, have numerous 

 bunches of closely growing foliage scattered througli them 

 much as seen in some of our red cedars. These bunches often 

 resemble the nests of birds so closely that it is difficult to dis- 

 tinguish the difference between them without close examina- 

 lion; thus, there, the domicile of this warbler is not easy to 

 find. The nest is, however, placed on the limb of a tree close 

 to the ti unk. The eg'gs are laid during the latter part of June, 

 and by the first of August the young are fully fledged. 



Song. The a'arm notes of the Black polls are usually a 

 sharp, rather prolonged chirp. This serves to distinguish them 

 in the fall from the Yellow-rumps, the notes of which are soft- 

 er and shorter. In spring, however, the Black-polls utter a 

 short chirp in addition to the usual note. Theordinar)^ spring 

 song is a series of lisping notes which may be expressed by the 

 syllables '' zee zee zee zee " given in a mionotonous tone. They 

 also utter a series of notes which somewhat resemble those of 

 the Pine Waroler, but which are shorter and less musical: there 

 are stiU other song notes, a short "■ chuck^'' repeated three or 

 four times. I heard the regular spring song given twice on 

 September 8 of this year ( 1901 ). 



Migration and Breeding Range Breeds in the ele- 

 vated portion of northern New England, on Grand Menan, 

 and northward. The Blackpolls begin to appear in Massa- 

 chusetts from the north, about the first week in September in 

 small numbers, but increase until October 1, then gradually 

 decrease, but do not wholly disappear until after the middle of 



