286 BIRDS or NORTH CAROLINA 



mon on Black Mountain in summer as low down as 3,000 feet, and that it breeds 

 in May, but adds he had never found it on Craggy Mountain. Bruner found it 

 the most abundant warbler at Blowing Rock in the summers of 1905, 1906, and 

 1907. Rhoads recorded it as common on Roan Mountain from 3,500 to 4,500 feet 

 in June, 1895. Both Mrs. Wilson and Collett say that it breeds on the mountains 

 near Andrews, in Cherokee County. 



In May, 1908, C. S. Brimley collected a few specimens of the Black-throated 

 Blue Warbler in the mountains, which deserve notice in this connection. They con- 

 sisted of a male taken at Blantyre, evidently a transient, from the undeveloped 

 condition of the sexual organs; two males taken at Highlands, one of which, judging 

 from the condition of the testes, was a transient, and the other a breeding bird, all 

 three being typical Black-throated Blue Warblers without any black on the back. 

 Beside these, he secured two on Joanna Bald Mountain, near Andrews, which 

 appeared to be breeding birds, but while one has considerable black streaking on 

 the back, the other has scarcely any. Bruner took a migrant at Raleigh, on April 

 27, 1908, which had as much black on the back as the most heavily marked of the 

 above, and this probably should be considered a Cairns's Warbler. 



Two breeding males collected by Bruner and Feild near Blowing Rock in late 

 June, 1911, showed marked differences of plumage. One was- very heavily marked 

 with black on the back; the other had no trace of black markings and was duller 

 colored in every way. In the summer of 1911 they found this species present on 

 Grandfather Mountain, where a nest with three eggs was found on June 22. On 

 Roan Mountain birds were seen feeding young on July 9. This was at Harvard, 

 Yancey County, at an elevation of only 3,000 feet. 



From the data available we are led to believe that Cairns's Warbler is simply 

 the extreme plumage of the breeding males of our mountains, and that others of 

 the breeding males are indistinguishable from typical Black-throated Blue War- 

 blers. 



Ladd, in the Ornithologist and Oologist for September, 1892, gives an interesting 

 account of the breeding of these birds on Craggy Mountain, which he visited in com- 

 pany with Cairns. Nests were found by him at elevations of from 4,000 to 6,000 

 feet, many being examined from May 5 to 26. They were mostly built in a weed 

 known as the rattle-weed (Caulophylum thalictroides) , but one was among rhodo- 

 dendron shoots. They were composed externally of strips of rhododendron or 

 grapevine bark, interwoven with pieces of birch bark, moss, and spider-webs, and 

 were lined with fibers. They varied from ten inches to three feet from the ground. 

 The eggs were greenish white in ground-color, or sometimes buffy white, and were 

 more or less heavily marked with different shades of brown and lilac, sometimes 

 in a wreath round the larger end and sometimes all over. In shape some were 

 rounded, one of these measuring .62 x .52. Others were elongate, one of these latter 

 being .68 x .59. The favorite haunts of this form, according to Ladd, are among 

 the rank weeds and ferns that spring from between the rocks and fallen trees in 

 the more heavily timbered ravines places invariably spoken of by the country 

 folks as "rattlesnake dens." 



