104 



THE OOLOGIST, pii> C^ ^ 



frequently flitting througli a narrow 

 sun-lit space with quivering wings and 

 outspread tail, a perfect picture of 

 orange, gold and olive green. It is, or 

 was one of the commonest summer 

 residents of the swamps bordering 

 the Illinois River up to the year 1900, 

 and one of the best articles refer- 

 ring to this bird that has ever come 

 under our notice is "The Life History 

 and Distribution of the Prothonotary 

 Warbler in Illinois," written and pub- 

 lished by W. B. Loucks, formerly of 

 Peoria, Illinois. 



The Prothonotary is found regular- 

 ly in the swamps bordering the Miss- 

 issippi river as far up as Davenport 

 and the Ohio as far north as Cincin- 

 nati, the Wabash river, the Kaskaskia 

 river, as far north as Vandalia, the 

 Missouri river for about half the dis- 

 tance across the State of Missouri, and 

 the Illinois River as far north as Ot- 

 tawa. In some of these places it is 

 very abundant, and in all of them prac- 

 tically a regular breeder. 



The Prothonotary here comes early, 

 arriving about the first of May. The 

 male is a tireless singer, soon selects 

 his summer home, and immediately 

 asserts squatter sovereignty in that 

 vicinity, making war upon all other 

 birds with which he is able to cope, 

 that invade his domain. The female 

 is garbed in more subdued hues, but 

 is recognizable at a glance as its name 

 would imply, as a Golden Swamp 

 Warbler. 



The nesting site selected by these 

 little birds is a hole in a tree, stump 

 or log apparently without much care 

 as to whether the cavity is artificial 

 or natural, nor as to the size of the 

 same, except they avoid large cavi- 

 ties. They seem to prefer those which 

 are in logs, trees or stumps standing 

 in the water; and also to prefer to 

 place their nest in a cavity in a damp 

 water-soaked or partially rotten timb- 

 er. The elevation from the ground 

 or water varies from a few inches 

 to twenty-five feet, both extremes be- 

 ing exceedingly rare; the vast major- 

 ity of nests being up from four to 

 twelve feet only. 



The niest material is fine scvaws. 

 weeds and grasses, occasional! ■ h 

 few feathers or hair, skeletonized 

 leaves, frequently some smaller dead 

 water-soaked leaves; and almost in- 



variably moss which the bird gathers 

 from the trees in the vicinity of its 

 home; a short greenish, bark growing 

 moss. These are formed into a cup 

 shaped nest that is fitted into the cav- 

 ity and in this the bird lays from 

 three to ten eggs; the latter number 

 being found, so far as the writer 

 knows, but once. The former number 

 occasionally. However, five and six 

 are the almost invariable clutch; 

 seven being quite rare and any num- 

 ber above that, exceedingly so. 



The female does practically all the 

 work of nest building, in which she 

 is accompanied back and forth as she 

 goes and comes for material, by the 

 male, who is apparently possessed of 

 a desire to do nothing but sing at 

 such times with all his energy. Both 

 birds incubate the eggs; the writer 

 having repeatedly taken the male in 

 his hand from the nest. Incubation 

 lasts two weeks. 



The birds raise a second brood in 

 the season here if undisturbed and 

 leave for the South about as soon as 

 their second brood is able to shift for 

 themselves. 



The Prothonotary is frequently im- 

 posed on by the Cow Bird, as many as 

 four Cow bird's eggs having been 

 found by the writer in one nest which 

 contained but two of the Prothonotary, 

 all partially incubated. The eggs are 

 the most beautiful laid by any of our 

 Warblers, and no series of them can 

 give an adequate representation of all 

 the varieties of size, shape and color- 

 ation. They group themselves natur- 

 ally into two groups, the lighter col- 

 ored eggs and the darker colored 

 eggs. They are larger for the size of 

 the bird, quite rounded, and have a 

 thick, heavy shell for a Warbler. The 

 ground color of some being glossy 

 white, and in others, a rusty or pink- 

 ish white, more or less covered with 

 all manner of chestnut, lilac, laven- 

 der, light brown, buff, rusty red, dark 

 brown and almost black spottings, 

 marks and blotches, arranged in some 

 as a ring around the larger end; in 

 some, evenly scattered over the egg 

 in very small dots; in others, cover- 

 ing nearly the whole side of an egg 

 with one huge blotch; and occasion- 

 ally an albino egg is found, the writ- 

 er having recorded in the O. & O., 

 Volume 14, page 37, the taking of a 



