290 THE BIRDS 
horizontal limb of a tree being used, from four to ten feet 
up. Eggs number four, a dull glossy-white, profusely 
specked with brown or lilac over the entire surface. 
Fresh eggs May 15th to June 15th. Size, .65x.50. Only 
one brood a season is raised with us, though further north 
they undoubtedly raise two broods. The southward 
migration is at its height the middle of August. Their 
food consists of worms, caterpillars, grubs, beetles, and 
moths, gathered from the foliage, thus making them a very 
beneficial bird. 
[654-A]. Dendroica cerulescens cairnsi (Coues). 
Cairns’s Warbler. 
Ranee.——Breeds in Canadian and Transition zones in 
the southern Alleghenies from Maryland to Georgia; win- 
ters in the West Indies. 
In North Carolina, where similar conditions exist as 
in many of our higher altitudes, this warbler has been 
found breeding extensively. The handsomest series of 
eggs I have ever seen, and probably in existence, is in the 
collection of Mr. J. Parker Norris, of Philadelphia, who 
prizes them most highly. Professor Smyth does not re- 
port them at Blacksburg, nor did my father find any evi- 
dence of them at Goshen, Hot Springs, or Harrisonburg. 
This form is a subspecies of the Black-throated Blue 
Warbler (Dendrioca czrulescens), that being a more 
northern form, and from which they differ onlv slightly. 
The nest is placed in close proximity to the ground, of fine 
moss and leaf skeletons, rootlets, strips of bark, and lined 
with fine black grasses or hair. The eggs number three 
