BLACK-THROATED GREEN WARBLER i6i 



'Sometimes the last note is omitted, as follows:" 



^ 



— I , 



"Below is a second distinct song and the same bird will some- 

 times sing one form several times and then change to the other. The 

 fourth note of it has an entirely different quality from the other four ; 

 a harsh buzzing sound as though the breath were drawn in." 



Nesting Site. — Coniferous trees are most frequently chosen by 

 this species but it selects also an alder or birch. The height of the 

 site from the ground depends largely upon the nature of the bird's 

 haunts; when, for example, it lives among scrubby spruces, the nest, 

 as might be expected, is low, at times within three feet of the ground ; 

 but under suitable conditions the nest may be as high as forty feet well 

 out on a horizontal limb. 



Burtch writes that at Branchport, N. Y., he has found twenty or 

 more nests and all have been in hemlocks. Two were in little rudi- 

 mentary limbs against the body of slender trees, the others were vari- 

 ously situated on horizontal or drooping limbs from three to twelve 

 feet from the body of the tree and from ten to forty feet from the 

 ground. A nest found at Closter, N. J., the most southern sea-level 

 breeding locality recorded, was placed in a most unusual site. It is 

 described as "between the stems of a skunk cabbage plant and fastened 

 to a catbriar and the twigs of a dead bush, and was about fourteen 

 inches from the ground, in a very wet part of the swamp." (Bowdish^.) 



Nest. — The almost woven exterior of small hemlock twigs appears 

 to be characteristic of the nest of this species. 



"The compact and deeply cupped nest is usually composed of fine 

 dead hemlock twigs lined with hair and rootlets, and, sometimes, 

 feathers or a fine dead grass and fine strips of bark, white birch bark 

 occasionally being used. It sometimes has attached to the exterior 

 little bunches of yellowish wooly substance, and a white fluffy material 

 resembling spiders' silk." (Burtch, MS.) 



Eggs. — Almost invariably 4 in number. Ground color ranges from 

 white to creamy white and grayish white, rather heavily marked with 

 fine specks and spots: few blotches occur of cinnamon-rufous, 



