PINE CREEPING WARBLER. 233 



Like many other birds, the Pine Creeping Warbler constructs its 

 nest of different materials, nay even makes it of a different form, in the 

 Southern and Eastern States. In the Carolinas, for instance, it is usually 

 placed among the dangling fibres of the Spanish moss, with less work- 

 manship and less care, than in the Jerseys, the State of New York, or 

 that of Maine. In the latter, as well as in Massachusetts, where it breeds 

 about the middle of June, it places its nest at a great height, sometimes 

 fifty feet, attaching it to the twigs of a forked branch. Here the nest is 

 small, thin but compact, composed of the slender stems of dried grasses 

 mixed with coarse fibrous roots and tlie exuvia9 of caterpillars or other in- 

 sects, and lined with the hair of the deer, moose, racoon, or other animals, 

 delicate fibrous roots, wool, and feathers. The eggs, which are from four 

 to six, have a very light sea-green tint, all over sprinkled with small pale 

 reddish-brown dots, of which there is a thicker circle near the larger end. 

 In these districts, it seldom breeds more than once in the season, whereas 

 in the Carolinas, Georgia, and the Floridas, where it is a constant resi- 

 dent, it usually has two, sometimes three, broods in tlie year, and its eggs 

 are deposited on the first days of April, fully a month earlier than in the 

 State above mentioned. 



Its flight is short, and exhibits undulating curves of considerable ele- 

 gance. It migrates entirely by day, flying from tree to tree, and seldom 

 making a longer flight than is necessary for crossing a river. The song 

 is monotonous, consisting at times merely of a continued tremulous 

 sound, which may be represented by the letters Trr—rr-rr-rr. During 

 the love season, this is changed into a more distinct sound, resembling- 

 toe, twe, te, te, te, tee. It sings at all hours of the day, even in the heat 

 of summer noon, when the woodland songsters are usually silent. 



It is a hardy bird, seldom abandoning the most northern of the 

 Eastern States until the middle of October. I saw none beyond the Pro- 

 vince of New Brunswick, and Professor MacCu'lloch of Pictou had not 

 observed it in Nova Scotia. In Newfoundland and Labrador I did not 

 see a single individual. 



I have placed a pair of these birds on a branch of their favourite 

 pine ; but the colouring of the male is not so briUiant as it is in spring 

 and summer, the individual represented having been drawn in Louisiana 

 in the winter, where, as well as in the Carolinas, the Floridas, and all the 

 Southern Districts, it is a constant resident. 



