The Townsend Warbler 



toilet while she sat in a dead manzanita of ashen gray hue. This making 

 of the toilet is the master sign of an incubating female. Cramped as 

 she has been by long hours on watch, she immediately falls to preening 

 her feathers, when danger, not too threatening, has obliged her to quit 

 her post. The mate, in this instance, appeared also, and "chipped" 

 both sharply and vigorously. But his interest nagged presently and 

 he made off, pouting, while the madame, always chipping, proceeded 

 to preen her feathers for the sixth time. It was a desperately tedious 

 process for the onlooker, but at last the call of the nest became irre- 

 sistible. The female roused herself, circled about noisily to throw me 

 off the scent, and then fell silent in the depths of a little live oak patch. 

 I moved toward it watchfully, but or ever I reached the edge the scolding 

 notes burst out afresh. This time I used my eyes, and presently made 

 out a dull gray nest snugly ensconced in the dull gray fork of an oak 

 sapling about eight feet up. The nest is deeply cupped, composed 

 externally of frayed weed-bark, bleached in some instances to white- 

 ness. The lining is of finest grasses interspersed with deer-hair, and 

 the brim is turned with a copious use of feathers, among which I recognize 

 the bronzy sheen of the Roadrunner's. 



Another nest, taken by Mr. C. W. Bowles in Oregon, is set in a 

 multiple fork of manzanita at a low height. The walls contain every 

 sort of woodsy loot, — flower-stems, frayed grasses, catkins, spider-cases, 

 and sheer trash. The lining is of gray feathers exclusively, while the 

 brim bristles with an array of Mountain Quail feathers. The four eggs 

 are white, speckled and spotted, chiefly about the larger end with light 

 russet vinaceous. 



Although so fond of nesting at the lower levels, this warbler does 

 not scruple to nest also at any height in fir or pine trees; and in such 

 fashion it carries out the genius of the genus Dendroica, which is singularly 

 unfettered in its habits and choices. 



No. 89 



Townsend's Warbler 



A. 0. U. No. 668. Dendroica townsendi (Townsend). 



Description. — Adult male: Pileum, hind-neck, lores and auriculars, chin, 

 throat, and upper chest, black; supraloral region, continuous with broad superciliary, 

 a spot under eye, and a malar stripe (broadening behind, and nearly meeting end of 

 superciliary on side of neck), yellow; breast yellow, heavily streaked on sides with black, 



4 8 4 



