544 THE BIRDS OF MAINE 



limbs of trees and even taking insects in the air. Their alarm 

 notes are "chick" or "chuck." 



In the nesting season they frequent the woods, preferring 

 woods not too dense overhead and with a fair amount of bushes 

 with frequent open spaces beneath. I have found them most 

 abundant in rather open hard woods of the more elevated 

 character on gentle slopes near Bangor, but in other sections I 

 have found them in open swampy woods or in open evergreen 

 woods and so can only say that they are birds of the woodland. 

 Where the Trilliums, Arbutus, Cypripedium acaule, Cormis 

 Canadensis and similar plants grow, there you will find the 

 Oven-bird. In some sections of the State they frequent the pine 

 woods. 



Of their domestic life I can tell but little, as they are secretive 

 and not readily discovered while engaged in their family affairs. 

 The nest is always placed on the ground and is generally 

 roofed over, with entrance on the side, thus resembling an oven. 

 A nest found May 30, 1894, was on the ground at the edge 

 of a low piece of woods near a swamp. It was the typical 

 roofed structure, composed of dried and partially skeletonized 

 leaves and lined with grass. The diameter outside was five 

 and a half and inside two and a half inches. The height out- 

 side was three inches, and the distance from bottom to top 

 inside two inches. The five eggs measure 0.80 x 0.65, 0.81 

 X 0.64, 0.81 X 0.64, 0.85 x 0.62, 0.82 x 0.63. 



Another nest found June 9, 1895, was at the foot of a small 

 bush in rather swampy woods. This nest was abnormal in 

 not being roofed over, and was composed of dry leaves, sedges 

 and stems of fallen leaves, lined with leaves. It measures in 

 depth one and a half outside by one inside, and in outside 

 diameter three and a half and inside two inches. The eggs 

 measure 0.80 x 0.60, 0.81 x 0.61, 0.79 x 0.60, 0.82 x 0.62, 

 0.81 X 0.60. Four or five eggs are usually laid, very rarely 

 six. These are white and somewhat glossy, sometimes sparsely 

 or heavily speckled over the entire surface, again wreathed or 



