324 THE BLACKBURNIAN WARBLER. 



merit, strikingly in harmony with this gala-day of spring. 

 As is the case with most of our brilliant birds, the male re- 

 quires several years to acquire his richest tints, hence Wil- 

 son and Audubon described the male of the second year as 

 a separate species, called the Hemlock Warbler, and Bona- 

 parte even distinguished it as of a different genus. 



Wintering in Mexico and Central America, this Warbler 

 migrates through Eastern North America generally, being 

 seen by Audubon in the Magdalen Islands, Newfoundland 

 and Labrador. Beginning to breed sparingly in the Middle 

 States and Southern New England, its principal breeding 

 range would seem to be to the northward. It is not uncom- 

 mon in the breeding season in Maine. President MacCul- 

 loch, of Halifax, N. S., favored Audubon with the nest of 

 this species, but regarded the bird as rare in that province. 

 This must be true, as my correspondent, Mr. Andrew 

 Downes of Halifax, an experienced ornithologist, does not 

 report it. 



Audubon describes the above nest as follows: "It was 

 composed externally of different textures, and lined with 

 silky fibers and then delicate strips of fine bark, over which 

 lay a thick bed of feathers and horse-hair. The eggs were 

 small, very conical towards the smaller end, pure white, 

 with a few spots of light-red towards the larger end. It was 

 found in a small fork of a tree five or six feet from the 

 ground, near a brook." Mr. H. D. Minot says: " A nest of 

 this species, containing young, which I found in Northern 

 New Hampshire, was placed about twenty feet from the 

 ground in a pine. Another, which I was so fortunate as to 

 find in a thick hemlock-wood near Boston, was also about 

 twenty feet from the ground. It contained three young 

 and an unhatched egg, which measures .65 X .50, and resem- 

 bles the egg of the Chestnut-sided Warbler, being white, 



