Vol.^XIVn WiDMANN, Home of Bachmait's Warbler. ^O? 



when they leave the nest. As was afterwards found, these 

 attacks occurred far from the nest and could therefore not only 

 give no clew, but were rather misleading. The trees, which the 

 singing bird frequented, were scattered over an area of two acres, 

 and to look over two acres of blackberry brambles among a 

 medley of half-decayed and lately-felled treetops, lying in pools of 

 water, everything dripping wet with dew in the forenoon, and 

 steaming under a broiling sun in the afternoon, is no pleasant 

 job. At first it seemed easy enough to find the nests after 

 locating the males, but this proved to be a mistake. 



Day after day I watched some of the males and searched the 

 ground, but in vain. At last, on the morning of the 13th, I saw 

 the female of No. i, slip down into a bush with a dry grassblade 

 in the bill. Now it was comparatively easy to find the nest, but I 

 was surprised to see it almost ready to receive the eggs and, 

 without doubt, built during my presence on the grounds the last 

 few days. Though many hours had been spent within a few rods 

 of the nest the female was only seen once in the trees which the 

 male frequented, when she was feeding for a few moments, picking 

 small larvae from the underside of the leaves of Ostrya, hanging 

 titmouse- like at the edge of the leaf itself. When in the act of 

 reaching overhead, the gray throat patch appeared with great 

 distinctness. At 9 a. m. on the 14th, she was sitting on the nest 

 and, when I returned an hour later, the first egg had been laid, 

 an entirely white egg which contrasted strongly with the deep 

 black rootlet-lining of the nest. On the next day, the 15 th, the 

 second egg was laid, and on the i6th, the third. She was still 

 sitting on the nest in the afternoon and probably began brooding 

 as soon as the third egg was laid. On the forenoon of the 17th, 

 she was still sitting on three eggs, and when I found her again on 

 the nest in the afternoon I considered the set of three eggs 

 complete. At my approach she would not leave the nest until I 

 could almost lay my hand upon her, when she quietly slipped out 

 and disappeared behind the brambles. Only after she had begun 

 brooding was she heard to complain with a very soft, hardly 

 audible tsip. The cup of the nest being deep, only the head of 

 the sitting bird can be seen, but her yellow face is quite charac- 

 teristic. It consists of a yellow frontlet, set off by a narrow 



