60 J. A. ALLEN, CATALOGUE OF 



bier. Abundant in May, and in the early part of autumn. 

 Arrives May 1st to 5th, and for two or three weeks is a 

 common inhabitant of the orchards and gardens, actively 

 gleaning insects among the unfolding leaves and blossoms 

 of the fruit trees. Nearly all go north, but a few retire to 

 the woods and breed. During June, 18G3, I frequently 

 saw them in my excursions in the woods, often three or 

 four males in an hour's walk. Its song so much resembles 

 the song of the Chestnut-sided Warbler (Dendroica penn- 

 sylvanica) that it might readily be mistaken for it. To 

 this cause, and to the difficulty of seeing such small birds 

 in the dense summer foliage, is doubtless owing the fact 

 of its being so commonly overlooked by naturalists during 

 the summer months, rather than to its extreme rarity in 

 this latitude at that season. I have found the nest of 

 this species for two successive seasons, as follows: 

 May 31st, 1862, containing four freshly laid eggs. The 

 nest was placed on the ground, and sunken so that the top 

 of the nest was level with the surface of the ground, and 

 protected and completely concealed above by the dead 

 grass and weeds of the previous year. It was composed 

 of fine rootlets and dry grass, lined with fine dry grass and 

 a few horse hairs, and covered exteriorly with a species of 

 fine green moss. The eggs were white, sprinkled with 

 light reddish brown specks, most thickly near the larger 

 end. Longer diameter sixty, and the shorter fifty, one- 

 hundredths inches. The following year, June 5th, 

 1863, I found another nest of this species, within three or 

 four feet of ivhere the one was discovered the previous year, 

 a.nd containing three eggs of this species and one of the 

 Cow Bunting, in all of which the embryos were far ad- 

 vanced. The nest in every particular was built and ar- 

 ranged like the one above described, and the eggs must 

 have been laid at just about the same season. In both 

 cases the female bird was secured, and the identity of the 

 nests ascertained beyond question. The locality of the 

 nests was a mossy bank, at the edge of young woods, 

 sloping southward, and covered with bushes and coarse 

 plants. Probably the male of the first nest, mating again, 

 selected the same site for the second nest ; and it may 

 have been occupied for a longer time. 



61. Helminthophaga celata Baird. Orange-crowned 



