132 CAPE MAY WARBLER 



'thin', and more run-together. They have also a slightly 'impure', or 

 double tone, — a quality from which the fine-spun notes of the Black- 

 poll are peculiarly free. Again, the 'swell and fall', so characteristic 

 of the Blackpoll's common song, is lacking in the Cape May's, which 

 is merely accelerated a little toward the end. All this applies to one 

 of the Cape May's two (or more?) main songs. The other, more like 

 the Black and White's, has each of the six or eight main syllables 

 longer-drawn-out, and split into barely-severed halves" (Thayer, MS.). 



"I have only heard them sing one or two springs; a 

 thin, rather sweet squeak repeated several times. In May, 1897, it 

 impressed me as one of the thinnest and least musical of the Warbler 

 songs." (Farwell, MS.) 



Nesting Site. — Too little is known about the nesting habits of 

 this species to warrant general statements. A nest found by Banks 1 

 at St. Johns, N. B., was placed near the tip of a branch of a low 

 cedar less than three feet from the ground and was "well-screened 

 from observation." 



Nest. — The walls of the nest above mentioned are "composed of 

 minute twigs of dried spruce, grasses, and strawberry vines, with 

 spider's webbing interwoven with coarse fabrics and knotted with 

 numerous little balls, which are bound upon the surface. * * *The 

 exterior is rather roughly made, but is more compact, and bears 

 evidence of more art than is shown in the nest of the Magnolia 

 Warbler which it somewhat resembles. The interior, however, is 

 much more neatly and artistically formed in the Cape May's than in 

 its congener's. The lining is composed entirely of horse-hair, arid 

 this is laid with precision, and shaped into a prettily formed cup, 

 the brim being turned with exquisite grace. The dimensions of the 

 nest are, outside, 21-4 inches high and 2 3-4 to 3 inches across the 

 mouth; inside, 1 1-4 inches deep and 1 3-4 inches wide." (Chamber- 

 lain 1 .) 



Eggs. — 4. "The eggs are of much the same dull white ground- 

 color, of a slightly ashen hue, as that of the Magnolia. The form 

 of the egg is different, however, the Cape May's being less pyriform 

 — the point less acute. The markings are of light and dark lilac, 

 and yellowish and reddish tints of brown; the brown being on the 

 surface and the lilac underneath the coatings of the shell producing 

 the various shades. As a rule the spots are circular and very small — 

 many being quite minute — and are irregularly distributed, no two 

 eggs bearing the same pattern, though in all four there is decided 

 tendency to concentration in a ring near the large end; but on some 



