Wilson's warbler. 169 



and less loud. They were rather famiUar and unsuspicious, kept 

 in bushes more than trees, particularly in the thickets which 

 bordered the Columbia, busily engaged collecting their insect 

 fare, and only varying their employment by an occasional and 

 earnest warble. By the 12th of May they were already feed- 

 ing their full-fledged young, though I also found a nest on the 

 i6thofthe same month, containing 4 eggs, and just commen- 

 cing incubation. The nest was in the branch of a small service 

 bush, laid very adroitly as to concealment upon an accidental 

 mass of old moss ( Usnea) that had fallen from a tree above. 

 It was made chiefly of ground moss i^Hypnum), with a thick 

 lining of dry, wiry, slender grass. The female, when ap- 

 proached, went off slyly, running along the ground like a 

 mouse. The eggs are very similar to those of the summer 

 Yellow Bird, sprinkled with spots of pale olive brown, inclined 

 to be disposed in a ring at the greater end, as observed by Mr. 

 Audubon in a nest which he found in Labrador made in a 

 dwarf fir, also made of moss and slender fir-twigs. 



Wilson's Black Cap is a regular, though not common, summer 

 resident of northern New England, breeding chiefly north of the 

 United States. It is not uncommon in the Maritime Provinces, 

 and fairly common as a migrant about Montreal, but is rarely seen 

 in Ontario, though abundant in Ohio, and reported as breeding in 

 Minnesota. 



Note. — The Small-headed Flycatcher {Wilsonia minuta 

 and Sylvia minuta of Wilson and Audubon) was given a place in 

 the " Manual " by Nuttall, who alleged to have seen the species. 

 Not having been found by any of the more modern observers, it 

 has been omitted from many recent works. It was placed on the 

 " hypothetical list " by the A. O. U. committee, but has been again 

 brought forward by Ridgeway, in his " Manual," Wilson stated 

 that he saw it in New Jersey ; Audubon said he shot one in Ken- 

 tucky ; and Nuttall's examples were in Massachusetts. As the 

 birds were seen by Nuttall only "at the approach of winter," it is 

 probable they were the young of the year of some of the more 

 northern breeding species. 



