WARBLERS 505 



western counties within Canadian faunal limits nest build- 

 ing has commenced. At this season the song of the male may 

 be heard as it is uttered from the branches of some rather low 

 tree, and it consists of a rather sweet succession of notes 

 sounding like "pe-wee-wee-se-zewee," or sometimes shortened 

 into "swee-swee-swee." 



The nest is almost invariably placed in a low evergreen 

 tree in rather thick woods or heavy undergrowth. Four eggs 

 taken at Lincoln, June 10, 1896, were in a nest composed of 

 bark and fine sedges, lined with fine vegetable fibres. It was 

 placed in a low fir tree about three inches from the ground in 

 dense underbrush, the exterior diameter of the nest is four 

 inches and the interior diameter two and a quarter inches. 

 The exterior depth is two and a half inches and the interior 

 depth one inch. The eggs measure 0.65 x 0.50, 0.61 x 0.50, 

 0.60 X 0.51, 0.65 X 0.50 inches. The eggs are usually four 

 in number, sometimes five, and quite often only three. The 

 ground color is grayish white, somewhat coarsely spotted as 

 well as finely dotted with olive brown, lilac and lavender. 

 The markings are often most numerous at the larger end, but 

 are usually well scattered over the entire surface. 



When the vicinity of a nest containing eggs or young is 

 approached the parents manifest some anxiety, flitting from 

 bush to bush and uttering an alarm note much like that of 

 the Chipping Sparrow. Penobscot, Piscataquis, Aroostook, 

 Washington, Oxford and the northern part of Somerset counties 

 are the chief breeding grounds of the species within Maine, 

 and in some sections it may locally be called common, though 

 more often rather rare as a summer resident. 



In August the southern migration begins and it is highly 

 probable that all have passed out of the State by the middle 

 of September at the very latest. Much, however, still remains 

 to be known about the habits of these birds. 



The food consists largely of insects, much of which is caught 

 on the wing, while more or less is gleaned while the birds are 

 flitting about among the foliage. 



