530 THE BIRDS OF MAINE 



experience.) To resume, the nest was twelve feet from the 

 ground and composed of fine spruce and hemlock twigs, neatly 

 woven with fine strips of white birch bark and a few fine strips 

 of the inner bark of the basswood, mixed here and there with 

 fine bits of some woolly cocoon, and a few cobwebs. Then 

 layers of fine grasses, interwoven with quite a quantity of 

 thistledown for a lining, and a few long hairs for an inner 

 lining. 



The eggs, five in number, were fresh, with a white ground 

 quite thickly sprinkled with brown and lilac spots, with here 

 and there a few black specks, forming a wreath about the 

 large end. They somewhat resemble the eggs of Dendroica 

 peTisylvanka, though there is considerable variation in color 

 and markings of D. virens, as well as in D. pensylvanka. 

 Generally when one finds the Magnolia Warbler (^Dendroica 

 maadosa) nesting, you will find D. virens breeding in the 

 near vicinity. I have examined quite a number of nests in 

 Franklin County, and in Cumberland County, (Cape Elizabeth 

 being a favorite resort). They are quite deeply cup-shaped, 

 and are placed from three feet to thirty-five feet from the 

 ground, always in an evergreen, and often contain feathers, 

 and in shape and appearance, resemble the nest of Dendroica 

 pensylvanica or Setophaga ruticilla, or most any of our War- 

 blers, though the nest is quite distinctive when one becomes 

 familiar with it. The eggs are generally four in number. I 

 know of but one instance of the Cowbird (^Molothrus ater) 

 imposing its egg on this Warbler. In this case, one egg had 

 been laid when the intruder dropped its egg in the nest. 

 They left it and built another not many rods away, and laid 

 four eggs, unmolested by the Cowbirds, but May 30 the nest and 

 set was collected and is now in the collection of O. W. Knight. 



The nests are very hard to locate in the taller trees, but 

 are much easier found in a more open clearing, with patches 

 of spruce, fir and hemlock, where one can follow the birds more 

 easily. It is generally placed in a fork of a limb near the 



