580 THE BIRDS OF MAINE 



Genus GALEOSCOPTES Cabanis. 



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704. Galeoscoptes carolinensis (Linn.). Catbird; Pussy. 



Plumage of adults: crown and tail black; lower tail coverts chestnut; 

 otherwise clear slate gray, paler below. Immature plumage : below mouse 

 gray, mottled with brownish ; crown cap less distinctly black ; otherwise 

 very similar to adults. Wing 3.55 ; tail 3.70 ; culmen 0.62. 



Geog. Dist. — North America, breeding from the Gulf States to New Bruns- 

 wick and northwestward to the Saskatchewan and British Columbia; winter- 

 ing from the Southern States to Cuba and Panama ; resident in Bermuda ; 

 accidental in Europe. 



County Records. — Androscoggin; common summer resident, (Johnson). 

 Aroostook; very rare at Houlton, nests, (Batchelder, B. N. 0. C. 7, p. 109). 

 Cumberland ; common summer resident, (Mead). Franklin ; common summer 

 resident, (Swain). Hancock; locally common summer resident, (Knight). 

 Kennebec; quite common summer resident, (Gardiner Branch). Knox; 

 summer, (Rackliff). Oxford; breeds, (Nash). Penobscot; locally common 

 summer resident, not as common as in former years, (Knight). Piscataquis ; 

 summer resident, not common, (Homer). Sagadahoc ; common summer resi- 

 dent, (Spinney). Somerset; common summer resident, (Morrell) ; not found 

 in the northern county, (Knight). Waldo; (Spratt). Washington; not very 

 abundant summer resident, (Boardman) ; rare, one record, (Clark). York; 

 common, (Adams). 



Near Bangor the species occurs quite commonly from May 

 seventeenth to about September twenty-first, while Mr. Brown 

 gives the time of its arrival at Portland as about May seven- 

 teenth to twenty-fourth. The species is rare, local or absent 

 from the northern and eastern half of the State and not found 

 in the deep, dense wooded regions. In southern Maine it is 

 common. It is a species of the low swampy thickets, roadside 

 bushes and brier patches, borders of streams and ponds, and 

 of garden bushes and shrubbery, rarely being found in trees 

 at any elevation. The nest is placed in bushes, briers, alders, 

 shrubbery and vines at no great elevation, usually four to ten 

 feet from the ground. A typical nest was placed in a dense 

 clump of alders along Kenduskeag Stream, Bangor, about four 

 feet from the ground. This nest was composed of fine strips 

 of grape vine bark and other bark, fine weed stems, and lined 

 with fine black tendrils and rootlets. It measures three inches 



