180 MousLEY, Birds of Hatley, Quebec. [April 



birds, which propensity however, does not seem to be altogether generally 

 admitted. All were in forks of low bushes at a height of from a foot and a 

 half to three feet and a half above the ground, and were composed in some 

 cases of dry grasses and fir twigs, held together by spiders silk, and lined 

 with black and white horse hair and fine red rootlets, in others the fir twigs 

 were absent, grasses and strips of birch bark being used, with fine grasses 

 and rootlets as a lining, sometimes fine grasses only. Five contained sets of 

 four eggs each, the remaining one a set of three, the average dimensions 

 being: outside diameter 3, inside If inches; outside depth 2f, inside Ij 

 inches. I have no fall records, the last bird seen in 1914 being on June 25 

 and in 1915 on July 20. 



99. Dendroica castanea (Wilson). Bay-breasted Warbler.— 

 Rare transient; May 29; Aug. 27 to Sept. 9. Average date of departure 

 (for two years) Sept. 3. The above date in May of the present year (1915) 

 is the only one on which I have seen an adult pair of these birds in breeding 

 plumage. In September, 1914, three males were seen, and this fall six were 

 observed in August making a total of eleven birds only for the past five 

 years. 



100. Dendroica fusca (Muller). Blackburnian Warbler. — Rare 

 summer visitant; May 14 to Aug. 23. Average date of arrival (for two 

 years) May 17; of departure (for two years) Aug. 17. It was not until the 

 spring of last year, 1914, that I had the satisfaction of seeing a pair of this 

 exceedingly handsome warbler on the outskirts of a large wood, and later on 

 in the fall a single male. The present great warbler year however, has 

 brought different results, 23 examples being seen in May, besides the 

 locating of two pairs all through June, which were undoubtedly breeding, 

 but whose nests I failed to discover, notwithstanding presistent watching 

 and searching. The male spends most of his time singing and darting 

 about in the tops of the tall fir and hemlock trees, and in a somewhat dense 

 growth of these it is by no means an easy task to follow him or his mate to 

 the nesting site. 



101. Dendroica virens (Gmehn). Black-throated Green War- 

 bler. — Fairly common summer visitant; May 11 to Sept. 10. Average 

 date of arrival (for four years) May 18; of departure (for two years^ Sept. 

 6. This is not a particularly abundant warl^ler at any time, and only quite 

 a limited number of pairs remain to l^reed. With regard to the finding 

 of its nest and eggs, luck has been against me all along, for notwithstand- 

 ing the fact that I have seen the female with food and building material in 

 her beak on one or two occasions, I have never been able to follow her to 

 the site of the nest. Searching high up and low down in firs, pines and 

 hemlocks has brought no results except one vacated nest nine feet up in 

 a fir which differed shghtly in its construction from any other warbler's 

 nest I have found, and which I feel sure belonged to this species, as I had 

 seen a pair of birds about the locality earlier in the season. At Bury 35 

 miles to the northeast of Hatley, the species would seem to be more 

 plentiful according to Mr. Terrill's experience, see ' Ottawa Naturalist ' 

 for November, 1904. 



