GOLDEN-WINGED WARBLER 63 



In southwestern Pennsylvania, we learn from J. Warren Jacob's^ 

 monograph of this species, it prefers fields "abundantly supplied with 

 damp or springy places, with rank — but closely rooted grass, clumps 

 of bushes, briers, etc., and the adjacent forest skirted with like 

 growth." He adds : "I have never found a nest on the creek bottom 

 lands, but always well up the side or on top of a hill." 



In southern Michigan, Gibbs- states, "the Golden-wing evidently 

 prefers low sections of land, and appears most at home in quarters 

 where deep woods border marshy tracts. I have yet to meet with the 

 birds in very high and dry localities, although they are sometimes 

 seen in elevated swampy spots. I have never found the bird in oak 

 openings, hickory lands or sandy soil." 



In its general actions the Golden-wing resembles the Blue-wing. 

 It has the same peering ways and habit of examining a branch tip or 

 leaf while hanging back downward. Jacobs^ writes: "This bird must 

 be a great destroyer of leaf lice and small caterpillars that infest the 

 tips of branches and the underside of leaves, for they are continually 

 searching and picking at the opening buds and waxen leaves at 

 the ends of new twigs, the male pausing frequently to sing. At times 

 their actions [remind] one of the Gnatcatcher in flitting hither and 

 thither snatching up small winged mites." 



The same author states that two days seem to be ample time for 

 the birds to complete a nest, and in more than one instance he has 

 known a nest commenced one day to contain an egg "the second day 

 thereafter." The period of incubation, he adds, is ten days and the 

 young leave the nest when ten days old. 



Song. — "I have only heard the song on three occasions, but the 

 song is too distinctive a one ever to be forgotten. It was uttered 

 almost by the hour. An indolent, rather wheezy note, repeated three 

 or four times without variation; always the same note, a lazy, dron- 

 ing song with a little of the Black-throated Blue's huskiness in it. 

 The syllables sh, hush, hush, hush, recall it to me, the last three 

 slightly quicker than the first." (Farwell, MS.) 



"The song of H. chrysoptera consists normally of four notes 

 — shree-e-e, zwee, zwee, zwee, — the first about two notes higher than 

 the following three, being slightly prolonged. It is varied somewhat 

 at times, with the second note like the first ; again it is reduced to three 

 two, or even a single note. The song will immediately attract atten- 

 tion from its very oddity. By some it is considered harsh, but to me 

 it has a soft penetrating quality, unexcelled, this effect being 

 heightened by the uncertain source of the song." {Eames.^) 



