‘ 
200 YELLOW WARBLER. 
in mock-oranges and upright honey-suckles!, a more beautiful picture can hardly be 
imagined, than these shrubs in full blow and fragrance, amidst which one of these 
beautifully attired Warblers hops and skips about, frequently uttering its sprightly 
notes. It gladdens the heart of every one who has a sense for beauty, refinement, and 
poetry. In the Gulf region I frequently observed it in the flowering magnolias and 
banana shrubs, cape jasmines and China trees, all of which exhale a delicious perfume, 
and in the gorgeous flowering hibiscus, oleanders and pomegranate shrubs. Together 
with Mockingbirds, Cardinal Redbirds, Nonpareils, Blue Grosbeaks, Carolina Wrens, 
and Orchard Orioles it is a common bird of the southern gardens. , 
Early in June, in Texas fully a month earlier, we may look for the nest arid eggs. 
In Wisconsin and Illinois, I found it most frequently in upright honey-suckles and in 
mock-oranges, where usually the uppermost branches were selected for a nesting-site. 
Pear and apple trees, and the sugar maple are likewise chosen for nesting places. Hedge- 
rows, dogwood, viburnum shrubs, wild currant bushes, the hazel thickets fringing the 
border of woods, pomegranate, rose bushes, and orange trees in southern gardens are 
favorite nesting-sites. Sometimes the nest is built at heights ranging from twelve to 
thirty feet, but usually it is not more than five to eight feet above the ground. It is 
always more or less concealed among the dense leaves and is always fastened very skill- 
fully to several small upright twigs, which run also through the walls. The structure is 
very neat, symmetrical, compactly felted, and durable. It is built of soft vegetable matter, 
such as asclepias and hemp fibres, fine bark-strips, hair and cottony substances, lined 
with soft plant down, feathers, and very frequently with the chestnut-colored down 
of ferns. Near buildings wool, feathers, and thread enter into the composition. Some 
nests are constructed almost entirely of the down of willows, the nankeen wool of the 
Virginia cotton-grass, and the down of fern-stalks. In such cases the nest is very light 
and fluffy. Although frequently built in the uppermost branches of shrubs, the thunder 
storms which so often occur in early June and which are so destructive to many a bird 
nest, do not harm the domicile of the Yellow Warbler. The cavity of the nest is deep 
and the structure so compattly felted that the eggs do not roll out, when the winds swing 
the branches to and fro. In northern Illinois and south-western Missouri, I discovered 
many nests in dense hazel thickets. When thus situated they were protected from above 
by dense leaves, so that neither sun nor rain could do much harm to them. In orchards 
and gardens, even in villages and towns, the Yellow Warblers are exceedingly lovely 
and dauntless birds, and, if treated kindly, their breeding habits may be readily observed. 
Near the window of my room and close to a much used garden path, two large shrubs, 
an upright honey-suckle and a mock-orange, unfolded all their beauty during the season 
when the year renewed its youth. Both shrubs were dense, about eight feet high and 
as much through, the side branches bending down gracefully to the ground. During four 
successive years, a pair of Yellow Warblers built their nest in one or the other of these 
shrubs, always selecting the uppermost branches for a nesting-site. They worked early 
in the morning and constructed their nest chiefly of silvery asclepias fibres which were 
provided by the male, while the female was engaged in forming the nest. 
The eggs, three to five in number, show a greenish-white ground-color and are 
1 Lonicera fragrantissima, L. Standishii, L. tartarica. 
