556 THE BIRDS OF MAINE 



bushes like a mouse, repeating this act as often as we gave her 

 the opportunity. After trying in vain to get a good look at 

 the bird through a glass, and being unable to identify it, we 

 collected the bird and found it to be a female Mourning 

 Warbler. The nest was large and compact. On the bottom 

 were quite a few dead leaves, interwoven with coarse straw; 

 inside of these a lot of finer stems, and lined with dark rootlets 

 and a very few hairs. Neither the nest nor the eggs were at 

 all similar to the Maryland Yellow-throats, which I fancied 

 they would resemble. Since that I have found no nests, but I 

 find the birds in similar localities each year, on hillsides over- 

 grown with raspberry bushes, facing woods at a short distance." 



I first identified this interesting species in Farmington, about 

 fifteen years ago. I saw it and heard it singing on a hillside, 

 near a small stream, the latter part of May, and have usually 

 seen one or more each spring since. It has a rich gurgling 

 song, and when once it becomes fixed in one's ear it is not to 

 be forgotten, and not likely to be confounded with the song of 

 any of its relatives. For a description of its song I can do no 

 better than to quote from Chapman's hand book: — "Its com- 

 mon song consists of a simple, clear, warbling whistle, resembling 

 the syllables "true, true, true, tru, too, the voice rising on the 

 first three syllables and falling on the last two." 



During the nesting season he has a habit of perching at 

 frequent intervals on some branch, usually a dead one, and 

 singing for fifteen or twenty minutes, then very suddenly he 

 takes a rapid descent to the thicket near by, where doubtless 

 his mate is sitting on the nest. On June 12, 1894, at Farm- 

 ington, I observed a male singing on a perch near a raspberry 

 thicket, on a hillside sloping up from a small stream, but 

 though I spent several mornings trying to locate the nest I 

 was not able to do so. I saw a pair evidently nest-building 

 near Winslow, (Kennebec County) the last days of May, 1901, 

 but lack of time prevented me from locating the nest, though 

 I had it marked to a certain hillside not far from the Kennebec 



