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204 ORNITHOLOGY AND OOLOGY. 
sionally, a feeble note like the syllables cheweéch, cheweéch, 
cheweéch, uttered at first low, and rapidly increasing in 
volume. When passing through the forests of Maine and 
New Hampshire, I have seen numbers of these birds, par- 
ticularly in the neighborhood of swamps, flying from the 
tops of the huge hemlocks, and seizing the small lace- 
winged flies (ephemerides) that are abundant in those 
regions in May and June. I also noticed that they fed 
“largely upon the small caterpillars (geometride) ; and I saw 
them occasionally descend to the surface of a lake or river, 
and seize small spiders that were struggling in the water. 
The habits of this bird have caused it to be classed in many 
different ways. lLinnzus and others placed it in the genus 
Parus, Latham and many others called it Sylvia, some 
have named it Motacilla, and Stephens named it Zhryo- 
thorus. It, however, belongs properly among the Warblers ; 
and the position given it as above seems its most natural 
one. About the first of June, the birds commence build- 
ing their nest: this is placed in a fork near the end of a 
branch of a tree, about twenty feet from the ground. It is 
usually constructed of the long, gray Spanish moss that 
is $0 plentiful in the States of Maine, New Hampshire, and 
Vermont. A beautiful specimen in my collection, found in 
Maine by John Krider of Philadelphia, who kindly pre- 
sented it to me, is of this description, and one of the most 
curious specimens of bird architecture: the long hairs of 
the moss are woven and twined together in a large mass, on 
one side of which is the entrance to the nest, a mere hole 
left in the moss; the lining is nothing but the same mate- 
rial, only of a finer quality. There is another nest of this 
description in the collection of the Museum of Comparative 
Zoology in Cambridge, which was also found in Maine. The 
eggs are usually four in number, and they are laid about 
the first week in June. Their color is white, with a very 
slight creamy tint, and covered more or less thickly with 
spots and confluent blotches of brownish-red and obscure- 
