1890.I Brimley, Nesting of the Yellow-throated Warbler. 32 3 



THE NESTING OF THE YELLOW-THROATED WAR- 

 BLER AT RALEIGH, N. C. 



BY C. S. BRIMLEY. 



The Yellow-throated Warbler {Dendroica dominica) 

 is a regular summer visitor at Raleigh, arriving in the spring 

 from the middle to the end of March and leaving in September. 

 While it is more or less numerous in all large tracts of pines 

 and in all mixed woods containing large pines, it cannot be called 

 plentiful anywhere ; a fifty-acre tract of pines about half a mile 

 from my house contains just five pairs this year, and they are more 

 numerous there than in any other place I know of. 



This Warbler commences nesting early in April, selecting as a 

 site for its nest a horizontal limb usually, but not always, of a tall 

 thin pine. Sometimes it builds its nest where the limb forks, 

 but more often right on the limb, attached only to the limb itself 

 or else laced to small twigs as well ; one nest was built among 

 and attached to small twigs only, but this nest was also essen- 

 tially different in construction from any other we have ever taken 

 and resembled the others only in the rough and unfinished char- 

 acter of the rim. The nest is usually much like a Pine Warbler's 

 in general character, but lacks the black grape-vine bark which 

 gives the latter such a dark appearance, and is also usually less 

 compact, especially about the rim. The materials of which it is 

 composed are weed stems, strips of trumpet-vine bark, fine grass, 

 and caterpillar silk ; the lining is of horsehair or feathers or both. 

 The nest varies a good deal in size. The height of the nest 

 varies from twenty to ninety feet or more, and the distance from 

 the trunk from about three to twelve feet. While the female is 

 building, she usually keeps silent, but sometimes chirps ; the male 

 is apt to be singing somewhere near by, but apparently does not 

 care to go near the nest as he does not accompany the female 

 when she goes to the nest to build. At such times the female 

 often takes a roundabout route to get there, and her flight is 

 usually more desultory and less suggestive than the straight busi- 

 ness-like flight of the female Pine Warbler when approaching her 

 nest. 



The female apparently does all the incubating, as we have never 



