BIEDS OF EASTERN MASSACHUSETTS. 101 



delighted gaze the eggs. They were the first I had ever 

 seen, and I was much pleased. Full well was I now repaid 

 for all my former searching through swampy thickets and 

 briery hedges for this bird's nest. 



" The locality chosen was within a few feet of a lane where 

 an occasional pedestrian passed, and within eight rods of a 

 travelled road ! These facts are surprising, inasmuch as 

 the general habitat of this bird is in lonely, swampy places, 

 remote from man and his ways. About twenty rods away 

 was a swampy thicket ; from this the land sloped gradually 

 up to the spot where the nest was placed. There was, 

 apparently, no attempt at concealment whatever ; to be 

 sure, at the time of discovery it was partly overshadowed 

 by some ferns and rank weeds ; but these must have 

 grown after the nest was built, and it was plainly percep- 

 tible to a person standing upright. It was placed upon 

 a small bit of green moss, without the slightest depression 

 of the ground ; indeed, the spot, if anything, was slightly 

 elevated above the surrounding surface. Over aU waved 

 the branches of the pretty little elm upon which I first saw 

 the bird. There were a few soattering oak and elm trees 

 in the immediate vicinity. 



" The nest is composed outwardly of large oak-leaves, of 

 the previous year, and grapevine bark, and is lined, not 

 very smoothly, with fine grass and a few horse-hairs. It 

 is large for the size of the bird, quite deep, and slightly 

 smaller in diameter at the top than -in the middle. The 

 whole structure is riot nearly as neat as would be expected 

 fi:om so small and elegant a bird, and reminds one strik- 

 ingly of the nest of the Maryland Yellow-throat. The 

 dimensions are : Depth externally 3.15 inches, internally 

 2.20. Diameter internally in the middle 2.25, at the top 

 1.90; diameter externally 3.50. 



" The eggs are four in number, very prettily marked, 

 and proportionate to the size of the bird. No. 1 is per- 



