LAND BIRDS. 617 
state. It is known to nest practically everywhere 
north of the Saginaw-Grand Valley, and probably 
nests here and there in favorable localities throughout 
all the southern counties as well. It is decidedly 
fond of evergreens, and although during migration 
it may occur almost anywhere, it is seldom seen 
during the nesting season at any great distance from 
groves of coniferous trees. It abounds in pine, 
spruce and hemlock regions, and not infrequently 
a belt of red cedar or Virginia juniper will be found Fig; 139. Black-throated 
to harbor several pairs, although the surrounding Hoffmann’s "Guide.— 
territory may yield none. Higea hin: Sa es 
It arrives from the south with considerable regularity during the first 
week in May, the earliest record at Ann Arbor in twenty-five years, accord- 
ing to Mr. Norman A. Wood, being April 24, 1905, and the average for 
the same period, May 3. Owing, however, to its great abundance, and 
the fact that its breeding area extends far northward of our state, migrants 
continue to troop northward all through May and doubtless some are still 
traveling toward their northern breeding grounds while nesting has already 
begun in the middle parts of the state. Records of specimens killed on 
Spectacle Reef Light, Lake Huron, range from May 7, 1889 and 1894 to 
May 18, 1891, and even to June 2 in the same year. It begins to move 
southward again the latter part of August and is often abundant all through 
September, while stragglers linger until the middle of October. 
Dr. Gibbs tells us that in 1879 C. W. Gunn took a female in Ottawa 
county with nesting material in her bill, and both Mr. Gunn and Dr. Gibbs 
are confident that this species nests in Kent county as well as in Ottawa 
county. It was found nesting on Mackinac Island by 8. E. White, and 
also by Dr. Gibbs, and Otto Widmann found fully grown young being fed 
by the parents in Emmet county, July 11, 1901. The writer also found 
it abundant in Emmet county in June and July 1904, and on Big Beaver 
Island in Lake Michigan the same season it was the most abundant and 
characteristic breeding warbler. Everywhere throughout the higher 
grounds in the Lower Peninsula, and in the Upper Peninsula, this species 
is a characteristic summer bird, and its somewhat monotonous and often 
listless song is heard at all times from earliest morning until late afternoon. 
It is one of the species which sings freely through the heat of the day, 
and its wheezy notes, which may be written “zee, zee, zee-zee-zee” come 
down to the traveler through the pine forests during the hottest days of 
midsummer. 
Whether the bird rears more than one brood in a season is doubtful, 
but it is often heard singing well into August, and it seems not unlikely 
that, like its near relative, the Black-throated Blue, it may frequently 
rear a second family in July and August. 
The nest is built almost invariably in an evergreen, sometimes on an 
oblique branch well out from the trunk, more often close to the main stem 
of a small evergreen and only ten to twenty feet from the ground. In New 
England it is often placed in red cedars and small white pines, and in 
Michigan it may be looked for in these trees as well as in balsams, spruces, 
hemlocks and tamaracks. The nest is compact and deeply hollowed, 
well built of various fibrous materials, including shreds of bark, slender 
roots and pine needles, and is often lined with hair and occasionally with 
