Vol 'i9i9 XYI ] Mousley, The Singing Tree. 347 



notes proceeding from a tall maple tree; and it was not long before 

 I flushed the female Olive-backed Thrush (already referred to) 

 from her nest and four eggs, which were situated in a small hemlock 

 tree only seven yards from where the male had been heard. 



At that supreme moment I was only eight yards from the nest 

 of the Bay-breasted Warbler yet failed to detect it. Then I worked 

 round to the west, where a Black-throated Green Warbler was 

 singing from the top of a tall elm tree, and later on the female was 

 flushed from her set of four eggs, just fourteen yards from the 

 'singing tree' of the male. At any other time three nests and two 

 of them Warblers in three hours, I should have considered as out of 

 the common, but in the present instance I paid no attention to the 

 matter whatever, my thoughts all being centred on the greater 

 prize. 



The best part of another hour however went by and still no 

 results, so I decided to have another good look to the south, as the 

 actions of the male convinced me the nest was in that direction. 

 Incidentally also I wanted to get the particulars relating to the 

 nest of the Olive-backed Thrush, and it was whilst engaged with 

 this that a bird flew to the back of me and alighted in a small fir 

 tree. Turning sharply round I noticed she was the female Bay- 

 breasted Warbler, and almost directly she went to her nest, not- 

 withstanding that I was in full view of her and only eight yards 

 away. The nest was in the top of a small fir tree, nine feet from 

 the ground and three feet from the top of the tree, and placed 

 close against the trimk. It contained a set of four slightly incu- 

 bated eggs. I had passed it several times that afternoon without 

 noticing it, but no one familiar with the nests of warblers will be 

 surprised at this admission. So beautifully do they seem to blend 

 with their surroundings that they seem to be part and parcel of 

 them, and it is no easy matter sometimes to detect a nest, although 

 comparatively in an exposed position as this one was. It was 

 just five-thirty P. M. when I found it, and within the magic circle 

 too, it being exactly sixteen yards from the 'singing tree' of the 

 male, which I first noticed" at one-thirty P. M., so that I had spent 

 exactly four hours with this bird, during which time he sang almost 

 continuously, with only short intervals of rest in between. This 

 species as well as the Blackburnian and Black-throated Blue 



