338 Wright, Nesting of the Blue-Winged Warbler. \jOct 



were active but not restless. Twice an automobile, passing on the 

 highway under the elms, started the Bluewing from his busy search 

 for food among the leaves, and he flew back each time to the sap- 

 ling in which I had had my first view of him. The return to the 

 roadside elms, however, was quickly made each time. Before I 

 passed on to get my train I had spent a half-hour with this warbler, 

 enjoying my first experience with the species, very rare as a visitant 

 to Massachusetts, so far as records indicate, and never having been 

 known to nest within the borders of the State. 



Mr. William Brewster, in a foot-note to Minot's 'Land-Birds and 

 Game-Birds of New England,' states: "This Warbler is a common 

 summer resident of southern Connecticut, but is not known to occur 

 regularly north of Hartford, and is most numerous in the country 

 immediately bordering on the Sound and in the lower valley of the 

 Connecticut River. Several specimens have been taken in Massa- 

 chusetts, where, however, the species does not seem to have at- 

 tained a permanent foothold." 



There are only six recorded occurrences of the Blue-winged 

 Warbler in Massachusetts. Four of these are given in Messrs. 

 Howe and Allen's 'Birds of Massachusetts,' published in 1901, 

 namely: "a small flock" at Dedham about the 12th or 15th of 

 May, 1857, found by E. A. Samuels; a male bird captured at West 

 Roxbury on May 17, 1878, by Mr. C. N. Hammond; one seen at 

 Dorchester on May 15, 1897, by Forster H. Brackett; and one 

 taken at Taunton by J. H. Morse (date unknown). To these 

 occurrences Mr. Wells W. Cooke, in his 'Distribution and Migra- 

 tion of North American Warblers,' adds a fifth, that of a bird seen 

 at Framingham on May 13, 1896 (observer's name not givehj, and 

 'The Auk' of July, 1902, p. 291, adds a sixth, that of a singing male 

 bird seen at Waverly on May 29, 1902, by Mr. Guy Emerson. 



To my friend, Mr. Eugene E. Caduc, in whose ripe intelligence 

 and patient sagacity as a bird-observer I had acquired a full meas- 

 ure of confidence through many rambles afield with him, I con- 

 veyed the news of my happy discovery, and two days later, on May 

 21, he visited the haunt by the roadside where I had seen the pair 

 and heard the male bird sing. I was unable to accompany him. 

 His written statement of his trip in part is: "I came upon the birds 

 about 2.30 in the afternoon. I soon discovered that the female was 



