AMERICAN ORNITHOL OGY. 



25 



Photo bv C. H. Morrell. 



NEST OF OVEN BIRD. 



fine twigs and'often ornamented with mosses and skeleton leaves. Often 

 it'is a thing- of beauty. I have found it, however, quite scantily built 

 almost wholly of pine needles, when located in a pine forest. The eggs 

 are four or five in number, unusually rounded, and are white as porce- 

 lain, finely spotted and specked with red, brown and lilac, the marks be- 

 ing mostly around the larger end in the form of a wreath. In a neatly 

 built nest finely lined with skeleton leaves and horse hair, they are truly 

 objects for admiration, and always seem to say to the beholder, "Hands 

 off." 



HABITS. 



One of the most constant and noticeable habits of this bird is its keep- 

 ing so persistantly to the ground. Here it walks about, keeping time 

 and balance with a motion of the head, in the most dainty dove-like 

 manner. 



It is pre-eminently a walking bird. Here, too, like the strictly ground 

 Warblers, it must find its food. Never describing curves in the manner 

 of the Flycatchers, nor flitting among the branches, like the Dendroica, 

 (or Silviadae formerly), it scratches among the leaves after the manne, 

 of a Chewink. Here its sharp chipping alarm note is often heard, 

 especially in the breeding season, which is generally late in May or 

 early in June. Nothing is more characteristic, of our beautiful forests 

 than its unique chant, "Ke-chee, ke-chee, ke-chee, ke-chee, ke-cheer 

 ." Often beginning so softly that you might imagine the bird 



