248 



MOURNING WARBLER 



higher pitched. A less common form slightly resembles the crescendo 

 chant of Oven-bird, but is weaker. It is rather a swell than a cres- 

 cendo. Dr. Merriam describes a variation which I have never heard: 

 'true 'true 'true 'tru 'too, the last and next to the last syllables with fall- 

 ing inflection and more softly. The song is clear and whistling. 



"Song is incessant during the northward movement, but there is 

 apparently none on the return journey." {Jones.) 



Miss Paddock sends four renderings and writes: "The quality 

 is very full and rich and the rhythm unmistakable." 



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Nesting Site. — In briars or weedy growths in thickets usually six 

 to twenty inches above the ground. 



Nest. — Swain* describes a Maine nest as bulky but neat and com- 

 pact, made externally of dry leaves and vine stalks with an inner wall 

 of dead, coarse, flat-bladed grass, with finer grasses and a few weed 

 stalks, all through this wall a few small, dead white maple leaves being 

 interwoven. The lining was composed of fine grasses and a few horse- 

 hairs. 



A nest found by Tabor' in northern Cayuga County, N. Y., is 

 "composed of weed stalks with layers of leaves mixed in, and is lined 

 with fine black rootlets." 



Eggs. — Usually 4. Ground color white, sparingly spotted and 

 blotched with rufous red, brownish and light hazel in form of an indis- 

 tinct wreath about large end and few scattering marks over rest of 



