Vermont Botanical and Bird Club 11 



and gooseberry bushes in the vicinity of pines. A law giving the state 

 forester authority to root out all currants and gooseberries is necessary 

 and probably will be passed by the present legislature. Every member 

 of the Vermont Botanical club can help in this work of control by im- 

 mediately reporting rusts on currants or gooseberries to the state 

 forester. 



NESTING OF THE CONNECTICUT WARBLER 



Inez Addie Hoive 



Among the rare birds that I have found in St. Johnsbury during 

 the past two years perhaps the Connecticut warbler is more interest- 

 ing than any of the others, owing to it having nested here the past two 

 seasons. My first observations on this species were made in June and 

 July, 1915. On the morning of June 10 I was attracted to a small 

 piece of damp woodland about 10 rods from my buildings, by an un- 

 usual bird-song. I carefully searched out the singer and found it to be 

 a male Connecticut warbler. Hiding myself in the underbrush I 

 watched it for a while, when to my surprise I discerned the female 

 hopping along the ground in a thrush-like fashion with her mouth full 

 of fine fibers suitable for nest-building. She almost disappeared in 

 some deep moss on a rocky bank, left her load and flew out to the 

 open field where no doubt she collected her nesting material. The 

 next day I spent a few minutes in watching the pair and the female 

 evidently did all of the work of building the nest while her mate sang 

 at his best. 



During the next four days I found time to visit the spot oc- 

 casionally and on the morning of June 15 the female was on the nest 

 so I went away without disturbing her. On June 20 I found four 

 pinky-white eggs with brownish spots on them in the nest. On July 

 4 I again visited my noted tenants and found four little ones in the 

 nest. 



Then came a week of summer meetings of the Vermont Botanical 

 club, much rain, and other interests than warbler babies. However, 

 on July 15 I paid them another call when I found the adults and two 

 young fairly well fledged in some low fir trees near the nesting site. 

 Although I visited the spot many times afterwards I did not see them 

 again in 1915. 



On July 13, 1916, while botanizing in a famous old orchid swamp 

 in the northwest part of St. Johnsbury, I discovered a singing male in 



