JOURNAL OF MAINE ORNITHOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



25 



rippling song of the winter wren, an- 

 other bird seeming to like better the 

 dark and more secluded spots of the 

 forest. 



During the first of July, the song 

 of the olive-backed interspersed with 

 the characteristic metallic "puk, puk, ; ' 

 could be heard at most all hours of the 

 clay. 



It sang more commonly, however, in 

 the early morning and late afternoon. 

 The song is well in keeping with its 

 surroundings, wild and yet attractive. 

 One morning I heard a hermit thrush 

 singing in the distance and it gave me 

 a rare chance to compare the songs 

 of the two. Unquestionably the ex- 

 quisite flute-like noies of the hermit 

 were superior, both in quality and 

 purity of tone. Yet the song of the 

 Swainsons' had a fascinating quality, 

 which nearly offset the other superior 

 merits of the song of its rival. In the 

 form of the song, there was consider- 

 able difference. The song of the her- 

 mit with its high and low modulations 

 seemed more varied. The song of the 

 olive-back was more nearly on one 

 key, and uttered more rapidly and 

 more frequently than that of the her- 

 mit. From the middle of July on, the 

 olive-backs' sang less frequently and 

 chiefly in the morning. 



A note of July 26th. speaks of hear 

 ing the olive-backs' singing at six in 

 the morning but in much less numbers, 

 than before. Again on the 31st, men- 

 tion is made of hearing a few singing 

 in the early morning. With one ex- 

 ception, this is the last mention of 

 hearing its song. Aug. 12, I heard one 

 singing for a few moments. The 

 singer, I thought, must be out of prac- 

 tice for the notes sounded hoarse and 

 husky. From the very first of July, I 

 noticed young birds of various species 

 in the woods, but it was not till July 

 20th, that I saw a young olive-back, 



This one, evidently had left the nest 

 recently for it could not fly very well. 

 Six days later I found a nest of the 

 olive-back, containing young. It was 

 placed in a yellow-birch, twenty to 

 twenty-five feet from the ground. The 

 growth around there was of mixed 

 character and was not a very heavy 

 one. The tree in which the nest was 

 placed was so slender that I was 

 forced to make my observations from 

 the ground. From one side, the nest 

 appeared as a protuberance on the 

 tree. From another view, more of the 

 structure could be made out, and 

 pieces of birch-bark could be seen 

 hanging down on the ouside. I could 

 not determine definitely the number 

 of young. At one time, when the old 

 bird came with food, I counted three 

 heads projecting above the nest, all 

 evidently with but one thought, which 

 one could get the first mouthful. The 

 mother bird seemed to regard me as 

 a suspicious character, who would 

 bear watching, for she always alighted 

 on the side of the nest, so as. to face 

 me. i changed my position two or 

 three times during her absence from 

 the nest, but found that she would 

 alight in a correspondingly different 

 place, never having her back turned 

 toward me. During the fifteen or 

 twenty minutes that I watched the 

 nest, the bird made five visits to the 

 nest with food. The nature of the food 

 I could not determine. The first three 

 visits were in quick succession, with 

 not more than an interval of a minute 

 between the time of leaving and re- 

 turning. After the third visit I kept 

 a careful record of the time elapsing 

 from the moment when she left the 

 nest until her return. Between the 

 tmrd and fourth visits there was an 

 interval of four and a half minutes. 

 Between the fourth and fifth which 

 was the last, I observed, there was an 



