HIOODED WARBLER. 267 
little eggs, pearly and rosy, being marked with very minute dots, a few scattered over 
the surface but mostly in a ring around the larger end. Eleven days after this event I 
found another nest and set of three eggs in the same spot, scarcely a foot from where 
I found the other; these eggs were quite unlike the former set in markings, though of 
similar size, the spots being larger and more distinét, of a dark reddish brown color 
and chiefly collected about the large end though not in a ring. I did not look again in 
1879, but the 25th of May, 1880, I repeated the same experience in the same place, 
finding another set of four fresh rosy eggs, prettily and neatly marked in the usual 
manner; and again on the 3rd of June, only nine days later, I found another nest and 
four more eggs in the same spot. All these four sets were discovered within a radius 
of four feet, and I fancy were all of the same pair of birds, though very differently. 
marked, for I have observed that Hooded Warblers are very unsocial, having never seen 
two pairs of them occupying the same locality, or nearer than thirty rods of each 
other. If it was the same pair it would imply that the robbing of nest and eggs was 
no great loss to them, if they can be so promptly and completely replaced. A few notes 
from my observations of the bird as found here and I will close. The male bird is 
seldom seen near the nest except when it is building, or after the young are hatched, 
but he can usually be heard some twenty-five rods away, constantly repeating his clear 
musical che-we-e-o. I have seen him in the mating season, hovering after the manner 
of the Chats, and warbling so sweetly and continuously that the song seemed more 
like a chorus than a solo; but this performance is rarely seen. The female is usually 
only a little plain “Yellow Bird,” with the bright yellow face contrasting sharply with 
the greenish-yellow of the back, but I hase .ccasionally seen females with the black hood 
distinctly developed. 
“The bird may usually be heard by the first week of May (May 2 my earliest 
record) in their usual haunts from some dense thicket, and the female arrives, I think, 
a few days later, though she is so quiet and inconspicuous that she might be there and 
yet unobserved. Some of the birds tarry till September. Despite the assertions of several 
writers of note to the contrary, I pronounce the species a very common one here, in 
evidence of which I found in the season of 1880, eleven nests, with four eggs each in 
every instance but one, which had a Cowbird’s and three Hooded Warbler’s. I believe 
that when the bird and its habits become better known, its breeding range will be found 
to be more extensive in Connecticut, than the little town of Saybrook, if not, it would 
seem a very remarkable circumstance.” 
Mr. Clark had the kindness to send me two of these nests. They are much more 
beautiful and compact than the nests found in Missouri. The gorgeous kalmia is usually 
in full flower when the Hooded Warbler breeds. Underneath these shrubs the partridge- 
berry, wintergreen, lycopodiums, ferns, and the trailing arbutus grow in abundance. 
Both nests are exteriorly finely decorated with curly bark-strips of the yellow birch, 
fern down, bleached leaves, and spider’s webs. The rim is constructed of fine grape-vine 
bark, and the interior is lined with deep black rootlets. They are neatly and beautifully 
built in an upright crotch and are usually perfectly protected by a roof of broad 
evergreen. leaves. 
The song of the Hooded Warbler is very distinét and striking. During the beautiful 
