120 



THE OOLOGIST. 



may be heard from every quarter in 

 the woods, from treetops. from under- 

 larush and from the ground, mingling 

 harmoniously with the notes of their 

 companions. At this time they are 

 everywhere in the woods, the males in 

 full song, their mates almost as notice- 

 able from their quick, sharp chirp. I 

 have found them to be commonest in a 

 tract of high woods, timbered, though not 

 heavily, with sweet and black gum, ash, 

 Cottonwood, live, water and pin oak, 

 beech, hackberry and cypress, rather 

 open than otherwise, lying opposite the 

 city on the west bank of the Mississippi. 

 In certain spots these woods are thickly 

 filled with a low growth of the com- 

 mon cane, and here and there in the 

 more open spots are immense, impen- 

 etrable thickets of blackberries. This 

 locality is a perfect paradise for many 

 birds but in the breeding season the 

 Hooded Warbler is one of the common- 

 est of all. 



The birds mate shortly after their ar- 

 rival, and nest building cohimences 

 about the middle of April and later. 

 Although the Hooded Warbler seems 

 to prefer the deeper woods for feeding 

 and song, nearly all the nests are built 

 on the edge of an opening or clearing 

 just within the shadow of the trees, 

 possibly because the undergrowth is 

 thicker in such spots and affords better 

 concealment for the mother bird and 

 her home, 



The earlist date I have for beginning 

 of nest-building is April 13th. On the 

 morning of that day, while rambling 

 along the edge of a long clearing I no- 

 ticed a female Hooded Warbler sitting 

 in a clump formed by a small ash sap- 

 ling and an encircling vine of smilax, 

 that afterwards rose up to the limb of a 

 small hackberry tree. The bird left 

 the spot with numerous chirps as I ap- 

 proached, and I walked up and exam- 

 ined the spot whence she had flown, 

 the object of my suspicion. The smi- 

 lax and ash formed a triangular fork 



about thirty inches above the ground,, 

 and at the bottom was a single dea(J 

 blade of gi'ass, which I thought might 

 be the beginning of the nest. 



In the evening I passed the spot 

 again, and found instead of a single 

 strip of grass quite a collection of 

 strips of various sizes and a quantity 

 of thin dead leaves which formed quite 

 a respectable little nest, not finished 

 but very well begua. Both male and 

 female were observed in the vicinity 

 with material in their bills, and after 

 watching them awhile I found that the 

 former was taking quite an active part 

 in the construction of the nest, shaping^ 

 it and appearing to be fully as busy as 

 his spouse. A week latei', on the 20th, 

 1 passed the nest again and found it 

 completed and lined with dry, hair- 

 like fibers of the Spanish moss, and 

 discovered another nest about fifty 

 yards away from the first, on the op- 

 posite side of the clearing. 



It was about four and a half feet up,, 

 woven to two little saplings of a species 

 of alder, and was almost completed, the 

 female being seen near, the nest with 

 matei'ial. The saplings were in the 

 centre of a little thicket which grew 

 just at the edge of the high woods 



On the 28th I visited the two nests 

 again and found them just as before, 

 but no eggs. A few days later, on 

 the 2d of May I tried again and found 

 four eggs in each, which were naturally 

 fresh. The number indicated that an 

 egg had been laid each day, as the nests- 

 on the 28th were empty. 



My search for other nests on this- 

 date was rewarded by a single nest, 

 empty, but apparently just completed, 

 built in an alder sapling and supported 

 on one side by an alder ti'ee some four- 

 inches in diameter. The saplings- 

 grew from the root of the tree parallel 

 to the trunk, against which the nest, 

 was flatly set at a height of about four- 

 feet. This nest was the most adroitly 

 concealed of any I discovered, and cm 



