98 



General Notes. f^"!^ 



LJan. 



area, where I first heard the Wren, and where he stayed most of the time 

 for several weeks. Every day I could hear his pickiti' cherries, pickiu 

 cherries, pickiti cherries, pickifi, or teakettle, teaketjle, teakettle, or ivhee- 

 ha, zvhee-ha, -vhee-ha, but the bird was very shy for a long time ; in fact, 

 till the nest was built. Starting from the swamp, he would make a com- 

 plete circuit of the village every day, but apparently never left the valley. 



Early in June I noticed that he seemed to stick to one locality most of 

 the time, so I did a little exploring on his account, but could find no signs 

 of a nest or a mate. The property on which the bird seemed to be located 

 being occupied by people with whom I was not acquainted, I felt a little 

 delicate about asking to go over the place more than once, so I asked Mr. 

 Lewis H. West, who owns the place, to ask his tenants if they would not 

 watch the Wren and try to find the nest. " Why, yes," they told him, 

 " the birds have their nest in the roof of the well." This was about the 

 25th of June. 



We found the nest in one corner of the roof of the well, about ten feet 

 from the gi'ound. The well is less than forty feet from the house, and is 

 used daily. One of the birds left the nest when we went to see it, but 

 stayed close by on a hemlock till we left. 



I did not have a chance to visit the nest again till the loth of Julv, 

 when I found three young birds in the nest, well feathered. The mother 

 bird was feeding them at the time, and was not at all shv, alighting on 

 the lattice work around the well, with a small green worm in her bill, and 

 waiting till we withdrew. 



I did not keep track of the young birds after that, but heard the old 

 ones nearly every day for a long time. On Nov. 3, I heard two calling to 

 each other, one on the hill, one in the swamp. The last time I heard 

 anything of them was Nov. 22. 



There can be no possible doubt as to the identification of the bird, for 

 Mr. West and I both were within six feet of them twice, and I have often 

 watched them at short distances with a field-glass, while the song itself is 

 a pretty safe guide with that bird. 



I have good reason to believe that this is the first record of the actual 

 breeding of the Carolina Wren on Long Island. — Chas. E. Conklin, 

 Roslyn, ^ueeti's Co., IV. Y. 



A Remarkable Nest of the Tufted Titmouse {Par/is bicolor). — On 

 April 23, 1896, I noticed a Tufted Titmouse with its mouth full of build- 

 ing materials, and upon following it closely saw it fly into a very large 

 mass of Spanish moss {Tillandsia usneoides). When it appeared again 

 after depositing the nesting materials I was very much surprised to find 

 that there was no hollow whatever where the moss was growing. It was 

 followed by its mate, and made ten trips to the tree in less than fifteen 

 minutes. Having had a good deal of experience with this species when 

 nesting I knew it was characteristic of this bird to carry building materials 

 to the nest even after the eggs were laid. I resolved to climb the tree 



