300 NORTH AMKHICAX BIRDS. 



speaks of it as " very coinmon " in \Vasliiii«^ton Territory, thou<;h not so 

 aluuulant as McCJillivmy's Warbler. Tlie .saniu writer also states it to be a 

 "very common bird" in California. Their earliest arrival at San I)ie«;o was 

 on the 17th of April, about the time they reach Pennsylvania. They ap])ear 

 in New Knj^land early in May. 



Their nest is almost invariably upon the «.rroun(l, usually in a thick bed 

 of fallen leaves, a clump of grass or weeds, at the roots of low bushes or 

 briers, or under the shelter of a brush-pile. Occasionally it has been found 

 among high weeds, built in a matted cluster of branches, four or five feet 

 from the ground. Sometimes it is sunk in a depression in the ground, and 

 often its top is covered by loose overlying leaves. I have never found this 

 top interwoven with or fijrniing any part of the nest itself. 



The nest is usually both large and deep for the size of the bird, its loose 

 peri])hery of leaves and dry sedges adding to its size, and it often has a depth 

 of from five to six inches from its rim to its base. The cavity is usually 

 three inches deep and two and a quarter wide. Generally these nests are 

 constnicted on a base of dry leaves. An external framework, rudely put to- 

 gether, of dry grasses, sedge leaves, strips of dry bark, twigs, and decaying 

 vegetables, covers an inner nest, or lining, of finer materials, and more care- 

 fully woven. At the rim of the nest these materials sometimes project like 

 a rude palisade or hedge. Usually the lining is of line grasses, without hair 

 or feathers of any kind. 



In some nests the outer portion and base are composed almost entirely of 

 fine dry strips of the inner bark of the wild giape. 



The eggs vary from four to six in number, and also differ greatly in 

 their size, so much so that the question has arisen if there are not two s})ecies, 

 closely resembling, but differing chiefly in their size. Of this, however, there 

 is no evidence other than in these marked variations in the eggs. 



In the Great Basin, Mr. IJidgway found this bird abundant in all the 

 bushy localities in the vicinity of water, but it was confined to the lower 

 portions, never being seen high up on the mountains, nor even in the lower 

 portions of the mountain canons. "^ 



Their eggs exhilut a variation in length of from .55 to .72 of an inch, and 

 in breadth Irom .48 to .58 of an inch ; the smallest being from Georgia, and 

 the largest from Kansas. They are of a beautiful clear crystalline-white 

 ground, and are dotted, blotched, and marbled around the larger end with 

 purple, reddish-brown, and dark umber. 



