422 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



many variations of its two or more main songs. One of these is much 

 less changeable than the other. This is the simple one, which may be 

 syllabled ' tsiwi-tstwi-tsivvi-tsiwi,' or a variation ' sissi-vit, sissi-vit, sissi- 

 vit, sissi-vit,' deliberately and almost languidly uttered in both cases with 

 a fine ' kinglety ' sibilant-voiced tone. The other common song, though 

 it begins in much the same way, is more hurried throughout and ends 

 on a sharply ascending scale with a sort of explosion of small, crowded 

 notes; but the utterances vary widely and the one last described is about 

 the most changeable of all the warblers' songs I know. Even the tone 

 quality is not quite constant, for though it never, in my experience, varies 

 toward huskiness, it does occasionally range towards full- voiced richness. 

 Thus I have heard a Blackburnian that began its otherwise normal song 

 with two or three clear notes much like those of the most full and smooth- 

 voiced performance of the American redstart and another that began so 

 much like the Nashville that I had to hear him several times, nearby, 

 to be convinced that there was not a Nashville chiming in." 



The nesting site of the Blackburnian is usually the horizontal limb 

 of a conifer, spruce or hemlock. Merriam mentions one 84 feet from the 

 ground; Bolles, one placed in a sugar maple 60 feet from the ground; and 

 nests which our party found on the slopes of the Bartlett range and Mt 

 Marcy were in hemlocks 45 and 60 feet up. The nests reported by Mr 

 Burtch from the gullies near Branchport were in hemlocks about 35 feet 

 from the ground and 6 feet from the tree trunk. Mr C. F. Stone thus 

 describes the nesting as he has observed it: " After the great Black- 

 burnian wave has reached its height and passed northward, a few may 

 still be found breeding in the gullies in this vicinity. I know of but 3 

 or 4 pairs that remain to breed in our larger gullies where they are found 

 among the tallest and thickest hemlock trees. The male, at least, spends 

 most of his time in the highest hemlocks, darting from one tree to another, 

 continually on the move so that it is hard to get even a glimpse of him, 

 and if one were not familiar with his liquid warble the bird would go 

 unidentified unless the gleaming throat could be seen. To my ear the 



