LAND BIRDS. 607 
killed on Michigan lighthouses, this species has never been found. Even 
in the neighborhood of Lansing it is never common, having been observed 
of late years only half a dozen times, and then singly. Dr. Atkins first 
took it at Locke, Ingham county, May 16, 1876 and again in June 1881. 
He called it an irregular migrant and scarce (Dr. Morris Gibbs). On 
the other hand it was formerly very abundant at Petersburg, Monroe 
county, according to Trombley, although it has now almost entirely dis- 
appeared. 
It is an abundant summer resident, however, in Wayne county and St. 
Clair county, according to Swales, Taverner, Davidson, and J. Claire Wood, 
and its nest has been repeatedly found in that neighborhood, as well as 
in Washtenaw county. James B. Purdy records it as not uncommon at 
Plymouth, Wayne county, but states that he has found the nest but once. 
L. Whitney Watkins finds it a common summer resident near Manchester, 
Washtenaw county, and across the line in Jackson county; Mr. Edward 
Arnold states that its nest has been found near Battle Creek, and Dr. 
Gibbs says there are several records for Kalamazoo. It is, however, much 
less common on the western side of the state and grows rapidly scarce as 
we pass northward. 
It is an inhabitant of heavy timber and appears to prefer bottom lands, 
where it confines itself almost entirely to the upper branches of the tall 
trees. When migrating it frequently descends to the lower growth, and 
may sometimes resort to the ground for food, and of course for nesting 
material, but it certainly prefers the higher parts of the forest. It arrives 
from the south at about the same time as the last species, Mr. Norman A. 
Wood giving the average date for twenty-five years at Ann Arbor as May 
12, and the earliest record there as April 30, 1888. 
The nest is built invariably at a considerable height, in the great majority 
of cases about forty feet, and often as high as eighty feet above the ground. 
It is small, and compactly built of various fibrous materials, and is some- 
times saddled on a horizontal limb, but more often in an upright or oblique 
fork. The eggs are usually four and are bluish or greenish-white, spotted 
with brown and lilac, and average .69 by .53 inches. Largely on account 
of the habits of the bird the nest was imperfectly known for a long time, 
and up to the summer of 1878, Audubon’s description of a nest found near 
Niagara Falls was practically the only account known. In June 1878, a 
collector at East Penfield, New York, brought the writer a nest of four 
eggs which was found in the fork of a small ash tree about twenty-five 
feet from the ground and was built of fine grasses bound firmly together 
with spiders’ silk and lined with strips of bark and fine grasses. This nest 
is now in the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Cambridge, Massachusetts. 
The same spring a nest was found at Mt. Carmel, Ill., which was similar, 
but more bulky and more firmly built. During recent years several 
Michigan collectors have found numbers of the nests, especially in Wayne 
county, where W. L. Davidson took a nest and four eggs, near Detroit, 
June 6, 1897, and Mr. J. Claire Wood found many nests in 1904 and 1905, 
most of them early in June. Two nests taken June 20, 1909, contained 
eggs far advanced in incubation. At Grand Ledge, Eaton county, adults 
with nearly full-fledged young were found July 13 and 14, 1907, by E. R. 
Kalmbach and H. A. Moorman. 
According to Mellwraith the Cerulean Warbler is a regular summer 
resident in southern Ontario, but somewhat local in its distribution. ‘Its 
song is almost identical with that of the Parula Warbler, but in the latter 
