214 



THE OOLOOIST 



At length I heard a very faint "chip," 

 and the female was peering at me 

 from nearby saplings. She moved 

 anxiously about, but the "chip" she 

 uttered was so low and lifeless that I 

 could scarcely hear it. Later four 

 eggs constituted the nest complement, 

 and the female began to incubate, but 

 one morning when I visited the nest I 

 found it empty and the birds nowhere 

 to be seen. I never decided what 

 happened to the eggs, but thus the 

 nesting of this warbler that season 

 ended disastrously, and I regretted 

 that I had followed the advice of some 

 well-meaning wiseacres in leaving the 

 eggs for a later series of valuable ob- 

 servations upon the home life of these 

 birds, which never materialized, — my 

 birds had flown. 



22. Red - winged Blackbird. — The 

 Red-winged Blackbird is very common 

 throughout the Park, in the marshy 

 ends of the lakes and ponds. On 

 June 19 I examined three nests of the 

 Red-winged Blackbird, in the swampy 

 end of Little Long Pond, near the 

 Guest House, all in shallow water 

 among low sprouts and tufts of water- 

 grass. One nest was in a small shrub 

 of button-bush about two feet high. 

 The nest was set in the upright stems, 

 about a foot above the water, exposed 

 above so that the observer could look 

 down into it. It was made of coarse 

 grass stems, lined with finer grasses, 

 with good depth in the cavity; there 

 were three eggs in this nest. Another 

 nest was in the same kind of shrub 

 growing against a tussock of swamp 

 grass. The third nest was in a tuft 

 swamp-grass. All the nests were made 

 after the same plan of structure, and 

 each nest on that day contained three 

 eggs. The birds that day made no un- 

 usual commotion when the nests were 

 visited, the females merely flying 

 away with harsh cackling, and contin- 

 uing to scold at a respectful distance, 



while the males containued their reg- 

 ular calls, songs, whistles, and flight 

 movements. 



23. Red-eyed Vireo. — On June 20 a 

 nest of Red-eyed Vireo was found sus- 

 pended from a fork of a chestnut 

 sprout, the site being only about three 

 feet from the ground, in the woods 

 margin. The female was sitting on 

 three incubated eggs. 



24. Indigo Bunting. — The Indigo 

 Bunting is common in all parts of the 

 Park, frequently the bushy areas of 

 road margins, pond-shores, and open 

 patches of shrubbery. On June 20 I 

 examined a nest of Indigo Bunting, 

 found by the anxious chirping of the 

 parent birds when I was near the site 

 of the nest. It was in sprouts, on the 

 sloping side of a little ravine near the 

 main Tuxedo drive. It was made on 

 oblique or bending stems, about three 

 feet from the ground. When first ex- 

 amined it contained young birds, and 

 later I collected the nest after it had 

 .served its purpose in harboring the 

 brood. The side was in a black- 

 berry shrub, and the nest was really 

 saddled on drooping stems. It was a 

 bulky structure, made of coarse ma- 

 terial, such as soft dead leaves, weed- 

 stems and grasses, woven into thick 

 compact walls, with a lining of soft 

 dried grasses of brownish hue. 



25. Maryland Yellow - throat. — On 

 June 24 a nest of Maryland Yellow- 

 throat was examined in a small birch- 

 fern swamp near the Guest House. 

 The site was in a clump of mixed 

 sprouts of fern, dead birch, etc., about 

 two feet from the ground. The nest 

 was made of long dried grass-stems, 

 large dead grass blades and fragments 

 of dead leaves, with thick walls, deep 

 cavity, and lined with fine dried 

 grasses. One fresh egg was in the 

 nest, and the female was sitting when 

 disturbed. 



(To be continued.) 



