94 LAND-BIRDS AND GAME-BIRDS 



(C) RUFICAPILLA. Nashville Warbler. 



(Quite common as a migrant through this State, where 

 few regularly breed.) 



(a). About 4^ inches long. Above, dull olive. Beneath, 

 yellow. Back of Jiead, slate. Crown more or less marked 

 with chestnut-red. In 9 ? head-markings indistinct, and crown 

 patch often wanting. 



(&). The nest is placed on the ground, either in some open 

 part of the woods, or amongst the shrubbery of some southerly- 

 facing bank. It is commonly composed of dead leaves, strips 

 of thin bark, grasses, etc., and is often lined with hairs. The 

 eggs of each set are four, averaging about *63 X '50 of an inch, 

 and are here laid about the first of June. The eggs are white, 

 and vary between the extremes of being finely and thickly 

 marked about the crown with lilac, and being thinly and 

 coarsely blotched at the greater end with reddish-brown ; these 

 markings being sometimes combined. 



(c). The Nashville Warblers are summer-residents through- 

 out New England, but they are apparently more numerous in 

 the northern than in the southern portions. In Massachusetts 

 they are rare during summer, but are common at the time of 

 their migrations, which here occur about the middle of May 27 

 and of September. In spring and autumn, whilst traveling, 

 they habitually frequent lightly- timbered woodland, and some- 

 what, also, shrubbery about houses, but where they are resi- 

 dent in summer they chiefly affect dry scrub-land, often that 

 which is partially wooded. Their constant activity and indus- 

 try, combined with their general adherence, while traveling, 

 to the higher branches of the pines, chestnuts, oaks, and 

 maples, which they usually prefer to other trees, often renders 

 it difficult to detect their presence, even when quite' abundant. 

 They travel singly or in pairs and remain long in one tree or 

 cluster, not being easily frightened. The two great difficulties 

 in studying the habits of our warblers, are the almost nonde- 



87 1 have seen them from the 5th until the 20th. 



