290 WILDE, Nesting of the Parula Warbler. fa 
I desire to speak more particularly of the ponds, and large 
shallow stretches of water above the mill-dams, together with the 
small winding streams which supply them, as these are the local- 
ities where the long-bearded lichen or ‘ beard-moss’ (Usnea bar- 
bata), in which the Parula Warblers almost invariably construct 
their nests, grows most abundantly. j 
The mill-ponds formed by the streams north of the Denne 
Creek are wholly or partly hemmed in by dense thickets of 
various kinds of bushes, beyond which, almost as far as the eye 
can see, the higher dry land or as I might better say the hot 
‘Jersey Sand-Barrens,’ are overgrown with scrub-oaks (Quercus 
ilicifolia), interspersed with a few tall pines (P2nus 77, sida), while 
other portions are cleared for farming purposes. 
In the upper portion of the northern mill-ponds the numerous 
small cedar-bushes, which when fullgrown may only be termed 
scrub-cedars (Chamecyparis thyoides), together with other trees and 
bushes, all of which are often matted together in ‘small clumps or 
islands, are nearly all draped with festoons of ‘beard-moss.’ In 
addition to this, dead stumps of the cleared off timber still 
project out of the water, and many of their decayed tops being 
covered with smaller vegetation and ‘beard-moss,’ also help to 
beautify the mill-ponds. Various ericaceous bushes and open 
sphagnum bogs are scattered throughout this region, and these 
bogs often continue to the very sources of the small’ streams 
which supply the mill-ponds with water. 
The Parula Warblers breed undisturbed in these secluded 
spots, where the Kingbirds may be seen with outstretched wings, 
swaying on the topmost branches of the cedars, and where 
insects and Hummingbirds (Zrochilus colubris) may be heard, as 
they swiftly wing their way across the ponds. Uninterested 
persons seldom if ‘ever intrude, probably on account of the ‘ out- 
of-the-way’ localities, and the difficulties connected with pene- 
trating the dense bushes which surround their breeding grounds. 
The trees here in the upper portion of the mill-ponds increase in 
size, gradually culminating into dense red-water cedar-swamps, as 
they follow the small streams to their sources. 
Viewed from a short distance these saturated cedar-swamps 
present the appearance of a solid mass of dark green, and when 
