all 
230 ORNITHOLOGY AND OOLOGY. : 
This species arrives from the South very early, often 
before the last snow-storm of the season, and remains in 
the deep swamps of hemlocks or pines until the weather 
opens. About the first week in June, the birds become 
scarce, and soon but very few can be found. A nest with 
two eggs, found in Woburn, Mass.; and another nest with 
three eggs, from West Roxbury, in the same State, — are all 
the specimens accessible to me at the present time. These 
nests were built in forks of pine-trees, about twenty feet 
from the ground. ‘They are constructed of the bark of the 
cedar and leaves of the pine: these materials are intwined 
into a neat structure, which is warmly lined with mosses, 
and hairs of different animals. The eggs are of a bluish- 
white, with a slight roseate tint: this primary color is dotted 
with spots of two shades of brown and reddish, and some 
spots of purple. Dimensions vary from .69 by .50 inch to 
.6T by .o1 inch. 
In the migrations, these birds associate in detached flocks : 
in the spring they are in company with the Red-poll 
Warblers; and, in the fall, with the Yellow-rumps. 
They are, in the summer, almost always observed in the 
pine-groves, actively traversing the limbs and _ branches, 
sometimes with the movements of the Creepers and Titmice, 
sometimes with those of the Warblers, and often flying 
from the foliage and seizing an insect on the wing, like the 
Flycatchers. 
Their song is now somewhat similar to that of the Field 
Sparrow, or perhaps more like a mixture of that and the 
song of the Indigo-bird, if such can be imagined. It con- 
sists of the syllables tweet ’weet ’weet ’weet ’weet weet, uttered 
at first slow and faint, but rapidly increasing in utterance 
and volume. Besides this, it has a sort of trilling note, 
like fre ’re ’re ’re ’re ’re, uttered softly and listlessly. 
In the autumn, they add to their usual insect-food small 
berries and seeds: they are now nearly silent, having only 
a quick, sharp chirp. .They are scattered through the fields 
