332 Bird -Lore 



The nest is constructed of dead leaves, dry grasses, and slender weed-stalks, 

 sometimes almost entirely of one or the other material; the lining is fine grass, 

 rootlets, and hair. It is completely roofed over, spherical or short cylindrical 

 in outline, and is entered by an opening in one side, thus resembling a minia- 

 ture Dutch oven, whence the common name of the bird. As it forms only a 

 slight and inconspicuous mound above the general leaf-bed, it is almost im- 

 possible of detection unless the bird is flushed from the nest. Seeming to realize 

 her security, the mother bird is a very close sitter and will not fly until almost 

 stepped upon. Then, if the eggs are near hatching or there are young in the 

 nest, she will often flutter out and run away over the ground with trailing 

 wings and complaining note, feigning injury, in the hope of enticing the intruder 

 from her treasures in a vain chase after herself. This same ruse is also resorted 

 to for some days after the young have left the nest, if their retreat be intruded 

 upon. 



The eggs are three to six in number, commonly four; they are white with 

 chestnut and lilac-gray markings, sometimes small and evenly distributed, at 

 other times more or less aggregated about the larger ends, forming irregular 

 blotches and occasionally wreaths. The acuteness of the Cowbird as a nest- 

 hunter is shown by the frequency with which its eggs are found beside those of 

 the Oven-bird. Indeed, in my own experience it has been an unusual thing to 

 find an Oven-bird's nest without one or more of the parasite's. Two or three 

 alien eggs, besides an equal number of the owner's, are often found. A friend 

 reports finding an Oven-bird incubating two eggs of her own and three of the 

 Cowbird, but when a fourth Cowbird's egg was deposited the affront was too 

 great, and she deserted the nest. As many as five in one nest have been reported. 



The ordinary song by which the Oven-bird commonly announces his pres- 

 ence in the woods is an emphatic, ringing series of notes, beginning low and 

 deliberately, increasing in pitch, intensity, and rapidity of utterance until it 

 ends with a vigor that sends the last notes echoing among the tree-tops. Mr. 

 Burroughs' happy rendering of this song long ago in 'Wake Robin' has ever 

 since met with the approval of nearly all writers and has given to the species 

 its name of 'teacher-bird.' When one of these birds starts to sing in the quiet 

 of the deep woods, it is at first difficult to locate him, as the song has a marked 

 ventriloquous character, caused, perhaps, by the great increase in intensity as 

 the song proceeds. To quote BoUes again: 



"Strange, ventriloquous his music, 

 Far away when close beside one; 

 Near at hand when seeming distant; 

 Weird his plaintive accrescendo." 



But the Oven-bird has another very different utterance which is its true 

 song — its love or passion song. It is known to but comparatively few, though 

 some observers beheve that in proper season and place it is to be heard as often 



