YELLOW-THROATED WARBLER. 223 
much of their time searching the larger branches for food, but it is much more in the 
manner of the Pine Warbler, and their motion is rather a hopping than a creeping one. 
I have never seen them ascend the trees from the roots to the topmost branches, as 
Audubon relates, but I occasionally observed one clinging against the main trunk for a 
moment, to seize an insect, as will the Bluebird and many of the Warblers. Their hunt- 
ing ground is for the most part, however, among the higher branches, and a consider- 
able part of their time is spent at the extremities of the limbs, searching for food among 
the pine needles. Their bright yellow throats, brought out by contrast with the dark 
evergreen foliage, give them a certain resemblance to the Blackburnian Warbler. The 
males are not very persistent singers. I rarely heard them during warm hours of the 
day, even when pairing was almost their sole occupation. Their song is very pretty; it 
may be nearly imitated by the syllables twsee-twsee-twsee, twsee-see, the last two notes 
rising and terminating abruptly. It most nearly resembles that of the Nashville War- 
bler, beginning in almost the same way, but ending differently, and, indeed, throughout 
the notes are much sweeter. Both sexes utter a chirp similar to that of other Warblers, 
but sweeter. By the middle of April there was a marked decrease in the number of 
Yellow-throated Warblers about St. Mary’s.” 
I observed this bird first near Mobile and Pensacola in the pine woods and a few 
days later more abundantly on the St. John’s River and in the tall pines near my little 
orange grove and ornamental plantation at Gotha, Fla. It sang almost incessantly in 
the tops of the tall pines, but it frequently entered the. grove and visited the oleanders, 
magnolias, and oaks covered with masses of air-plants. A nest I could never find. Mr. 
Wm. Brewster discovered one at St. Mary’s, Ga., which was placed “at the height of about 
thirty-five feet from the ground, on the stout horizontal branch of a southern pine, one 
of a thinly scattered grove or belt that stretched along the edge of a densely wooded 
hammock. It was set flatly on the limb,—not saddled to it,—nearly midway between 
the juncture with the main trunk and the extremity of the twigs, and was attached to 
the rough bark by silky fibres. It was composed externally of a few short twigs and 
strips of bark, bound together by Spanish moss and a silky down from plants. The 
lining consists of a few hair-like filaments of moss and soft cottony vegetable fibres. 
The whole structure is neatly and firmly compacted, though essentially simple in 
appearance, and, from the nature of the component materials, of a grayish color. In 
size, shape, and general formation, it very nearly resembles nests of the Black-throated 
Green Warbler in my collection... The eggs, four in number, measure .69%.53 of an 
inch. They are quite regularly ovate, with fine dottings of pale lilac scattered thinly 
and evenly over a grayish-white ground-color. A few spots or blotches of burnt sienna 
occur about the large ends, while occasionally irregular, pen-like lines of dark brown 
diversify the remaining surface.’’ Near Raleigh, N.C., the nest is from twenty to ninety 
feet or more above the ground, and the distance from the trunk about three to twelve 
“feet. The nest there is usually much like the Pine Warbler’s in general character, but 
lacks the black grape-vine bark, which gives the latter such a dark appearance. The 
materials of which it is composed are plant-stems, strips of trumpet-vine bark, fine grass, 
and caterpillar’s silk; the lining consists of horse hair or feathers, or both. The bird 
commences nesting there early in April, frequenting for its haunts the pine woods. Mr. 
