76 THE CONDOR Vol. XXIV 
variously deseribed, but not all such differences in descriptions are due to the 
personal equation, for birds have an exasperating way of singing unusual 
songs to the confusion of the bird student. J. A. Allen (Bull. Mus. Comp. 
Zool., vol. 3, 1871-76, p. 187). says of this species: ‘‘Its notes are so similar 
to those of the Chat (/cleria v. virens) as to be scarcely distinguishable from 
them.’’ I did not observe this similarity, my note book reading: ‘* Their song 
begins with rich, low, whistled notes followed by trills and other whistled 
notes, higher-pitched than the opening ones, very similar to certain portions 
of a Canary’s song, alternating with other notes suggesting the bubbling song 
of the Long-billed Marsh Wren and ending as the bird alights, with a fine 
trill of an exceedingly high pitch.”’ 
As I have stated, this species arrived in flocks on May 17 and the birds 
were still in flocks on June 1, but by June 5d the dispersal to their nesting areas 
had taken place. Allen (loc. cit., p. 137) noted that they appeared to nest in 
eolonies about Fort Hays, Kansas. Around Great Falls this tendency was 
marked, five or six pairs nesting so near together that the males often sang 
trom a series of fence posts at the same time. 
The species nested rather locally all over this section of the Missouri val- 
ley, up to, but not in, the wooded foothills of the Rockies (elevation approx- 
imately 3600 feet). They are birds of the open prairie, selecting nesting sites 
in weedy tracts, under thick cover of tumble weed (Cycloloma atriplicifolium) 
accumulated by the wind against some obstruction, usually a wire fence, or 
even under a single plant of this species over-turned on the prairie. Nest- 
building begins during the last days of May, and a completed nest was found 
on June 1 which contained three eggs on June 4. This nest was built entirely 
of grass and, as is customary, was placed on the ground with its rim flush with 
the surface, the inside diameter being two and one-quarter inches, and the 
depth the same. 
The appearance of Lark Buntings in great abundance about Great Falls 
in the spring of 1921 was heralded by people generally thereabouts as a har- 
binger of good crops, for the birds are stated to have been very infrequent in 
this section of the state for years during seasons of bad crops. They are lo- 
cally called ‘‘ Bobolinks’’. 
Vireosylva gilva swainsoni. Western Warbling Vireo. First met with 
June 3 at Armington, along the foothills of the Little Belt Mountains, eleva- 
tion 3000 feet. 
Vermivora celata celata. Orange-crowned Warbler. This warbler does 
not appear to have received much attention at the hands of ornithologists, par- 
ticularly in the matter of its song. It was my good fortune to find two of this 
race, both males, on their nesting grounds about the time of their arrival, 
namely, May 17. The region selected by them was a wooded, triangular ridge, 
lying between two mountain streams, sloping easterly (thus being early freed 
{from snow), at an elevation of 5600 feet. Small willows and aspens, ten to 
twenty feet high, covered the ridge and grew for several hundred feet in 
every direction along the mountain slope, and about the blossoms of the for- 
mer the warblers were searching for their insect food. 
Each bird had apparently selected his ‘‘general nesting site’’, or nesting 
area, and these were about 500 feet apart. Both birds sang at short intervais 
for the five hours they were under observation; one confined its singing and 
