304 THE BIRDS 
and well made, placed from four to twelve feet up, com- 
posed of plant down and fiber, fine grasses, dry leaves, 
and leaf stems, and spider-webs, lined in most cases with 
a light yellow fine grass. Eggs number four, ground 
white or creamish-white when fresh, spotted and blotched 
with reddish-brown or lilac, the majority of which is 
toward the larger end, often in the shape of a wreath. 
The female is not a close sitter, seldom allowing a nearer 
approach than four or five feet. Fresh eges May 13th 
to 29th. Size, .64x.48. Occasionally a second setting 
and young are raised. They are abundant breeders over 
most of our area, the wooded islands off our coast having 
a goodly number of breeding pairs. The nests from Hog 
Island are particularly handsome, the birds using sheep 
wool in the construction. They migrate southward about 
August Ist to 4th, and as their food consists of caterpillars, 
larvee, moths, worms, and insects, they must be classed as 
highly beneficial birds. The nests on Hog Island are now 
placed near the tops of myrtle bushes, in thick clumps, 
owing, no doubt, to the large number of hogs there, which 
cat all the homes of the lower-building species. It seems 
strange to flush a female from her nest when she drops 
to the ground (sometimes fifteen feet), and uses all the 
artifices of a eround-breeding species to entice one away. 
GENUs SEIURUS. 
[674]. Seiurus aurocapillus (Linneus). Oven-bird. 
Rayer.—North America. Breeds in Canadian, Tran- 
sition, and Upper Austral zones from southwestern Mac- 
kenzie (casually the lower Yukon Valley), northern 
Ontario, southern Ungava, and Newfoundland south to 
