The Oven-bird in Minnesota 



331 



Warbler wave is still a little way behind, though spring must be well assured 

 before the Oven-bird ventures to appear. If the data at hand are to be relied 

 upon, its progress northward is unusually slow, for ten days or two weeks elapse 

 before it reaches the Canadian boundary. It is an abundant breeding bird 

 everywhere in the wooded portions of the state. Farther northward many 

 individuals penetrate the fur countries, even to Hudson Bay and westward to 

 Alaska, while eastern Canada and Newfoundland are the summer home of 

 the far travelers through the eastern states. The courting season is as brief 

 as it is ardent, for during ordinary seasons mating is accomphshed, nests built, 

 and eggs deposited by the third week in May, in the vicinity of Minneapolis. 



THE SAME NEST, OPENED TO SHOW THE TWO EGGS OF 

 THE OWNER AND THREE OF THE COWBIRD 



The nest is always on the ground, more or less buried beneath fallen leaves 

 and withered grasses, and is usually in a little opening in the forest or along a 

 trail or abandoned wood-road. As Frank Bolles says in his pretty poem 

 about this bird: 



"To the forests, to the leaf beds, 

 Comes the tiny oven builder. 



"Daintily the leaves he tiptoes; 

 Underneath them builds his oven; 

 Arched and framed with last year's oak leaves, 

 Roofed and walled against the raindrops." 



