1887.I SENNETT on Birds of Western North Carolina. 24 X 



4000 feet a few sets may be found earlier, yet it is safe to say that in the 

 mountains of North Carolina, May is the season for the first clutch of 

 eggs. Being obliged to leave, I gave directions that a few sets with nests 

 should be preserved for me, and on my return I not only obtained several 

 sets laid in May, but secured additional ones of the second brood. In 

 July, on Roan Mountain, I found both fresh-laid eggs and young in all 

 stages ; whenever the almost constantly present and low-hanging clouds 

 would lift for an hour or so, I could deviate from the main road and find a 

 Junco's nest. My experience told me that the first brood was generally 

 four, but often three, while the second brood was three, and rarely four. I 

 found these birds nesting on the ground in all sorts of places, — in the open 

 among the grass hummocks, along the edge of a cowpath, among the 

 rhododendrons, or myrtle tussocks (which look so much like the heather 

 of Scotland), under the balsams, or under the deciduous trees of a 

 lower altitude. Two nests, one of which was five and the other three 

 feet from the ground, were found in balsam trees: and I found one nest 

 at an altitude of two feet, in the roots of an overturned tree. Of the 

 twenty nests and sets of eggs in my collection, no two are alike, either 

 in size, shape, marking of eggs, or lining of nest. The nests are lined 

 with hair of various colors, fine rootlets, red moss, and grass like 

 that of which the body of the nest is formed. At Cranberry, in August, 

 I found occasional pairs of adults and young of the year, but did not 

 come across any nests. I brought back twenty-seven specimens, of all 

 ages from the newly hatched to the adult. This number does not com- 

 prise all the specimens shot and examined, for in the lower altitudes in the 

 spring I tried to secure typical hyemalis: I did not succeed in finding one. 

 This seems to show that true hyemalis, which, together with carolinensis. 

 winters there, does not remain as late as April 15, and therefore that the 

 only form breeding in the mountains of Western North Carolina is caro- 

 linensis. That the two forms are intermingled along the Atlantic States I 

 am led to believe on examining the series of eight males and six females 

 in the collection of Mr. J. Dwight, Jr., of New York City. There is 

 scarcely a typical hyemalis in Mr. Dwight's collection, and three males 

 conform as closely, both in size and external characteristics, to carolinen- 

 sis as if they had been taken on the high peaks of North Carolina. Mr. 

 Dwight's three specimens are as follows : 



No. 997, male, March 26, Rockaway Beach, L. I. ; wing, 3.12 ; tail, 2.75 ; 



bill, .39- 



No. 1002, male, April 1, Van Cortland, Westchester Co., N. Y. ; wing. 

 3.13; tail, 2.90; bill, .40. 



No. 1308, male. July 26, Albert Co., N. B. ; wing, 3.07; tail, 2. So; 



bill, -45- 



Average of 4 males, including type, of Mr. Brewster's specimens from 

 North Carolina (see Auk, Vol. III. No. I, p. 10S) : wing. 3.105: tail, 2.7S; 

 bill to feathers, .435. 



Average of 13 males in my collection from Roan Mountain, N. C. ; 

 wing, 3.15; tail, 2.87; bill to feathers, .41. Extremes: wing, 3.27-3.00; 

 tail, 3.05-2.70; bill to feathers, .45-. 36. 



