WARBLERS 



497 



of departure in fall as early as September, and near Bangor I 

 have found that the species arrives generally about May 

 thirteenth and the last straggler sometimes remains until 

 September twentieth. Between these dates the species is distri- 

 buted and breeding in nearly every section of the State, 

 though locally distributed, and where found usually rather 

 inclined to be in loosely scattered colonies. 



Their favorite habitat is in the trees about the wooded 

 shores of ponds and lakes, along rivers and along the coast 

 and about the shores of many of the wooded islands. Its 

 distribution is nearly coincident with that of the thread-like 

 lichen, Usnea longissima, in and of which the nests are always 

 constructed. Where the trees are draped with the hanging 

 clusters of this lichen the Parula is generally to be found 

 nesting, and where this lichen does not occur the Parula need 

 only be sought during migration. 



The nests are indeed beautiful objects to behold, largely the 

 work of Nature's architecture, elaborated and shaped by these 

 birds to suit their purpose. Where a suitable bunch of this 

 lichen hangs from a tree, the female Parula will work and 

 hollow it out into a nest with entrance on the side, bringing 

 occasionally more of the same material from neighboring trees 

 to line and fortify the inside of the structure. A typical nest 

 found at Orono, June 8, 1893, was in a maple tree in a swamp 

 at a height of eighteen feet. This nest was composed entirely 

 of Usnea. It measured from top to bottom outside seven inches; 

 the diameter of the entrance was one inch; the distance from 

 bottom of entrance to bottom of nest outside three inches; 

 diameter of inside of nest one and a half inches. The eggs 

 were white, finely spotted with a wreath of chestnut, grayish 

 and reddish brown, separated markings around the larger 

 end and sparsely marked elsewhere. They measure 0.66 x 

 0.58, 0.66 X 0.58, 0.66 x 0.56, 0.64 x 0.55. From May 

 thirty-first to June seventeenth, but usually about the first week 

 in June, is the time when the eggs are laid, and the female 



