122 LIFE-HISTORIES OF BIRDS 



could give little description of its habits; the most 

 of what he says being conjectural. Audubon 

 knew nothing of its habits or distribution; he 

 having met but a single individual. Nuttall's de- 

 scription is in a measure hypothetical and inaccu- 

 rate. Its song he represents by the syllables tsh- 

 tsh-tsh-tshyia, given at short intervals, and fre- 

 quently responded to by the female from her nest. 

 He perceives a resemblance to that of D. (estiva, 

 being somewhat louder and less of a whistle. 



According to the authority of Mr. Allen, it 

 breeds in western Massachusetts, where it arrives 

 about the Qth of May, frequenting low woods and 

 marshy thickets, and nesting in bushes. Prof. 

 Verrill has found it breeding in western Maine, 

 and Mr. Ridgway in the oak-openings and prairie- 

 thickets, of 'southern Illinois. J. Elliot Cabot, 

 Esq., was the first to discover in June, 1839, its 

 nest and eggs, in Brookline, Mass. The nest was 

 compactly built, elastic and shallow, and composed 

 externally of strips of red-cedar bark, and lined 

 with coarse hair. Mr. Welsh, of Lynn, Mass., 

 has discovered a number of nests situated within 

 barberry-bushes, which were constituted, exte- 

 riorly, of the bark of the smaller vegetables loosely 

 intertwined, reinforced by stems and fragments of 

 dry grasses, and lined with soft hairs of the 

 smaller animals and vegetable wool. These nests 

 varied from two and a half to three inches in 

 height, externally, and possessed a diameter rang- 

 ing from three to four inches. They were securely 



