Birds of Indiana. 1055 



»ee-e-e, the last syllable, sometimes the third, sometimes the fourth, 

 trilled. It was not lond and shrill, but distinct, carrying to a consid- 

 erable distance. It reminds me some of the songs of the Helmintho- 

 philas, approaching nearest to that of II . chrysoptera, and bears some 

 resemblance to that of the Cape May Warbler. The song, however, 

 changed. In eight to twelve days it was tweet-tweet-twet-twee-ee, 

 ending with a trilling or twanging effect on a rising scale. At times, 

 a part or the whole of the first song is added to this more pleasing 

 effort. Within twelve to fourteen days after arrival, the differences 

 have all been settled, all are happily married, the honeymoon has 

 begun, and the most thrifty pairs are housebuilding. The Cerulean 

 Warblers are, typically, birds of the treetops. Save when crouching 

 in some sheltered valley, to escape a raw wind, I have seldom found 

 them elsewhere than among the limbs of the tall maples, hickories 

 and elms. There they spend their time, obtain their living from the 

 many insects that infest the foliage, flowers and bark, and build their 

 nests. The nests I have found were usually forty to sixty feet high, 

 on top of a horizontal limb. The male evidently exhausted his 

 strength in his efforts to overcome rivals and to show his attentions 

 to his favorite. He now is not able to assist in building the nest. His 

 wife does that, and he sings while she works. 



May 6, 1897, I foimd a female so busily engaged nest-building that 

 she had not time to stop. Evidently she had a time contract, and the 

 limit was about up. She gathered fibres, spiders' webs and other 

 building material from the bushes and brush piles all around me, 

 and carried them to the horizontal limb, about fifty feet high, on an 

 oak, some two hundred feet away. She scarcely had time to deposit 

 her load, when she flew back for more material. I watched her a 

 long time and was surprised at the great energy she exhibited. In 

 southern Indiana, the eggs are laid the latter part of May, and the 

 young are out of the nest the last half of June. About that time the 

 song ceases. 



In July, most of them leave, some lingering through August, occa- 

 sionally even to the first of September. The latest dates I have are: 

 Lafayette, August 22, 1892; Vermillion County, August 22, 1897; 

 Plymouth, Mich., August 15, 1894, September 1, 1892. 



While they are with us they frequent the wooded hillsides and the 

 upland woods, as distinguished from the immediate river valley. They 

 are not associated in flocks, but are evenly distributed through woods 

 of the proper character. Their habits are such as make them of ^reat 

 service. Often, from among the high limbs of a tree, one will be seen 

 to dart out and, flycatcher-like, seize flying insects; among the smaller 



