THE NIDOLOGIST 131 
The Oven-Bird 
Semurus aurocapillus 
7N writing about this bird we treat of 
one of our most intéresting Warblers. 
Too much cannot be said about this 
little fellow, as he is always in the frout 
rank, either on dress parade or under fire. 
I will not try to describe his dress, as he is 
probably well known to most of our readers. 
His song resembles the American Red- 
start’s very much. I have often been de- 
ceived in them before I became familiar 
with the two species. 
But I think the song of the Oven: bird, 
is longer and sharper than the Redstart’s, 
asarule. How many times I have been 
out in one of my favorite pieces of wood- 
land, in the middle of May, and quietly 
seated myself at the foot of some convenient 
tree, to rest, and listen to the bird concert 
taking place all around me. It would not 
be long, before the familiar note of my 
friend, the Oven-bird, would be heard; and 
it is quite a dificult job to locate him. 
The note is very deceptive—it is hard 
work to tell whether he is twenty or a 
hundred feet away, and, after looking in 
all directions, you would probably locate 
him right overhead not twenty feet high; 
and there he sits, singing away, as if he 
were the only bird in the woods, and shak- 
ing all over with the exertion. 
But now let us come to the nesting 
habits, and to commence with, let us say, 
that it is quite a hard nest to find unless 
you are familiar with the birds and know 
how to look forthem. You might start in, 
and go through a piece of woods and 
scare half a dozen of them from their treas- 
ures and be none the wiser for it when you 
got to the other side, for the simple reason, 
that you are looking for anything in the 
shape of eggs, and nothing in particular. 
It has been my experience that such collect- 
ting does not ‘‘pan out” very heavy. By 
a mere accident, you may find something 
of value, but the chances are, that when 
you get home you will sit down, tired and 
hungry, and wonder why you did not find 
more, considering the ground you have 
covered. Well, I-think I can explain that 
in a few words. You covered foo much 
ground and none of it thoroughly. But to 
get back to the subject, it has been my 
experience that you will not meet with much 
success in hunting this little ground 
Warbler, unless you let everything else 
alone and pay strict attention to him, for 
the nest is a hard one to get your eye on, 
covered with leaves, as it is, and you 
might step on it and not see it; for they 
do not usually build at the foot ot a bush or 
tree, as most of the ground birds do, but 
right out in the open, among the leaves, 
where a person would naturally walk in 
going through the woods. 
So you must keep your eyes open, and 
watch the bird as she quietly walks away 
from her nest. She will not make any 
noise, but just simply get away from that 
locality, as quietly as possible, creeping 
under sticks and leaves, and keeping as 
close to the ground as she can, and will not 
take wing, until she gets some distance off, 
especially if you see, and try to follow her. 
For the benefit of any reader who may 
be in that position, I will tell you what I 
do. I just stick something in the ground, 
where I first saw the bird, (if I did not 
notice the species) then I carefully follow 
up tbe bird until I am sure of the identity, 
when I go back and knew about where to 
look for the nest. But to make a long story 
short, I will just mention a little incident, 
that happened last season, to show how 
easy it is for even a person who has made 
them a study to overlook the nest. 
I was out in the woods one Sunday in 
June, with my son, a young Nimrod of ten 
years, who wanted to see a bird’s nest with 
eggs, in the woods. We had got about 
into the center of a piece of woods, where 
the trees seemed to be alive with birds, and 
the most conspicuous of them all was the 
Yellow-throated Vireo. As I had fotind a 
nest of this species in the same woods last 
season, I cautioned the youngster to keep 
quiet, and leaned up againsta tree with the 
intention of watching a pair of the birds 
that were near, hoping they would show me 
their nest. Well, I was just imagining 
about how that nest looked,with the lichens 
hanging all over it, and the four speckled 
beauties lying snugly inside, when my 
dreams were interrupted by Butters, Jr.. 
“Oh, papa! look at that nest of eggs.’’ I 
immediately looked in the direction he was 
pointing, and there on the ground, not five 
feet from where I was standing, and had 
been for ten minutes, was as handsome a 
nest of the Oven-bird as I ever expect to 
find. 
Cuas. S. BUTTERS. 
Haverhill, Mass, 
