204 ORNITHOLOGY AND OOLOGY. 



sionally, a feeble note like the syllables cheweech, cheweech, 

 cheweech, uttered at first low, and rapidly increasing in 

 volume. When passing through the forests of Maine and 

 New Hampshire, I have seen numbers of these birds, par- 

 ticularly in the neighborhood of swamps, flying from the 

 tops of the huge hemlocks, and seizing the small lace- 

 winged flies (^ephemerides) that are abundant in those 

 regions in May and June. I also noticed that they fed 

 largely upon the small caterpillars {geometridce) ; and I saw 

 them occasionally descend to the surface of a lake or river, 

 and seize small spiders that were struggling in the water. 

 The habits of this bird have caused it to be classed in many 

 different ways. Linnseus and others placed it in the genus 

 ParuSy Latham and many others called it Sylvia, some 

 have named it Motacilla, and Stephens named it Thryo- 

 thorus. It, however, belongs properly among the Warblers ; 

 and the position given it as above seems its most natural 

 one. About the first of June, the birds commence build- 

 ing their nest ; this is placed in a fork near the end of a 

 branch of a tree, about twenty feet from the ground. It is 

 usually constructed of the long, gray Spanish moss that 

 is so plentiful in the States of Maine, New Hampshire, and 

 Vermont. A beautiful specimen in my collection, found in 

 Maine by John Krider of Philadelphia, who kindly pre- 

 sented it to me, is of this description, and one of the most 

 curious specimens of bird architecture : the long hairs of 

 the moss are woven and twined together in a large mass, on 

 one side of which is the entrance to the nest, a mere hole 

 left in the moss ; the lining is nothing but the same mate- 

 rial, only of a finer quality. There is another nest of this 

 description in the collection of the Museum of Comparative 

 Zoology in Cambridge, which was also found in Maine. The 

 eggs are usually four in number, and they are laid about 

 the first week in June. Their color is white, with a very 

 slight creamy tint, and covered more or less thi^ckly with 

 spots and confluent blotches of brownish-red and obscure- 



