I50 AUDUBON'S WARBLER 



Nesting Site. — In Estes Park, Colorado, the nest is saddled on the 

 limb of a pine or spruce eight to thirty-five feet from the ground, 

 sometimes near the trunk, at others ten feet out. Bowles (MS.) 

 writes that at Tacoma, Washington, this species "nests invari- 

 ably in fir trees on a limb, from four to fifty feet, but usually about 

 twenty feet up." In Arizona, Howard^ states that a nest placed 

 fifteen feet up in a fir tree was unusually low for this species, and 

 records a second nest as fifty feet up in a sugar pine twelve feet out 

 from the trunk. At Fort Sherman, Idaho, however, a majority of the 

 nests found by MerrilP "were in deciduous trees and bushes generally 

 but a few feet from the ground." 



Nest. — "Loosely constructed of weed-stems and tops, and strips 

 of bark, lined with fine weeds and horse-hair." (Estes Park, Colo.) 

 "The nest is a well built bulky structure, the largest of any of our 

 Warblers', measuring externally 3.5 inches in width by 2.5 inches in 

 depth. * * * It is very handsome, as a rule, being built of fir twigs, 

 everlasting weed, rootlets, moss, and dried grass with a thick lining of 

 horse-hair and feathers." {Bowies'^.) 



"The nests are very loosely constructed being composed almost 

 entirely of loose straws with a few feathers and hair for lining." 

 {Howard^.) "Such nests as were found here, while varying consider- 

 ably as to exterior, agree in having a lining in which black horse hairs 

 are conspicuous, and in which feathers are loosely attached, not well 

 woven in as is usual in most small nests." (MerrilP.) 



Eggs. — 3 to 5, usually 4. Ground color varies from dull white 

 or greenish white to bluish white, spotted and blotched with olive- 

 brown, lilac, purplish brown and lavender, very sparingly in some 

 types, quite boldly in others, but usually forming more or less of a 

 wreath around large end. Size ; average, .72X.54, extremes measure 

 .74X.53, .69X.5S, .72X.51, .72X.S6. (Figs. 50,51.) 



Nesting Dates. — Colorado, between 7,600-8,600 feet altitude, June 

 16 (Dille) ; Tacoma, Wash., April 22, four eggs ready to hatch — June 

 26 four eggs fresh. (Bowles). 



Biographical References 



(i) H. W. Henshaw, Z06I. Exp. W. looth Merid., 1875, 194. (2) J. C. 

 Merrill, Birds of Fort Sherman, Idaho, Auk, XV, 1898, 18. (3) O. W. 

 Howard, Summer Resident Warblers of Arizona, BulL Cooper Orn. Club 

 (z=Condor), I, 1899, 64. (4) J. H. Bowles, The Audubon Warbler in Wash- 

 ington, Condor, IV, 1902, 1 18. (5) L, Keyser, Birds of the Rockies, 62. 



