LOaiST. 



37 



38 



OEOTTHOLOaiST 



[Vol. 14-No. 3 



Nesting of the Prothonotary W^bler. 



One of the most beautiftil as well as one of 

 the least known of our summer visitors is this 

 I'd (Protiniotnria citrea). To know him one 

 ust Ije familiar with the stagnant ponds, 

 damp, niiasmatio, lieavily timbered swamps 

 of our grand Mississippi valley. To study well 

 the habits of this very gaudily dressed songster 

 you must spend hours of time, use careful ob- 

 servation, and, last but not least, more than 

 likely make the acquaintance of King Ague. 



In' this section of country this little known 

 bird is very abmidant, and yet is scarcely 

 known to any but the students of ornithology 

 on account of his peculiar liabits. For some 

 years past 1 have been making a special study 

 of this warbler, and it is with no little misgiv- 

 ings that I now propose to give the results of 

 study to my bird-loving brothers, although it 

 is done at the special request of the editors of 

 the O. & 0. 



These warblers arrive here from about the 

 fii-st to the tenth of May, and immediately se- 

 lect some old deserted woodpecker's hole, or 

 natural cavity, in an old snag or live tree. 

 This is their house, and right valiantly do they 

 hold it against chickadee, wren, or other 

 squatter. 



One of the odd things about their selection 

 of a nesting place is their ability to tell where 

 the ponds and creeks will be when the river 

 goes down. But they can. They usually come 

 North when the river (Illinois) at this point is 

 jry high, and expanded in an unbroken sheet 

 of water from one to two miles wide. Vet 

 these little fellows select a place foj- a home 

 that, when the water goes down in the sum- 

 mer, is almost always beside some small piece 

 of water that does not dry out. How they can 

 tell where these will be when the whole faci^ 

 of the bottoms is covered with water is a 

 mystery. 



Having selected their nesting place, the fe- 

 male begins by bringing some fine straws or 

 grasses which are arranged in a nice nest in 

 the bottom of the hole. Next she procures 

 some fine strips of grape vine bark, and lines 

 her nest, and lastly covers this all over care- 

 fully and tliickly with moss, such as grows on 

 tlie bark of trees standing in the water. This 

 mode of construction is the usual one and 

 makes a very warm, compact nest. 



They very rarely use any feathers or hair, 

 and sometimes build their nest entirely of one 

 of the above materials; and I have one nest in 

 my collection that has as carefully a woven 



lining of small black rootlets as are ever seen 

 in a Kentucky Warbler' s nest. However, these 

 are exceptional, as the nest is usually con- 

 structed as above stated. 



The entire work of building, so far as I {im 

 able to judge, is done by the female bird, her 

 male aiding her only by a continual and vigor- 

 ous song and occasionally — but very seldom — 

 by bringing a small bill full of material and 

 leaving it on the outside of the hole, for lier to 

 carry in and arrange. 



The situation of the cavity is something they 

 seem to care little about, only that it must be 

 'near the ground, or water, rather. So far as 

 ' my observation goes they very rarely use a 

 hole higher than fifteen feet, aud far oftener 

 lower than five, than above ten. Sometimes, 

 however, tliey ascend as high as twenty-live 

 feet. As for concealment they seem to care 

 little or nothing, as I have frequently found 

 their nests where I could stand in my boat and 

 see the bird on her nest twenty to fifty yards 

 ,oft' — the cavity being shallow; and I have 

 imany times found them sitting on a nest that 

 was not over three inches above the water, in 

 the end of a broken leaning snag, aud tlie bird, 

 eggs, and nest all wet with the spla,sli of the 

 small waves. 



Many of the little fellows lose their nests by 

 this love of building low down, as sometimes 

 the river rises after they have a nest of young 

 birds, and drowns them out. At such times 

 their disti-ess is pitiful. 



Usually about a week elapses between the 

 time they select a nesting site, and the begin- 

 ning of building. This usually takes about 

 iten days, and fresh eggs are found here from 

 kbout May Itth to June 1.5th, as the extreme 

 dates shown by my journal. 



The number of eggs varies from three to 

 seven, although I have always believed both 

 were not the real number laid by one bird. I 

 have very seldom found three to be a full set, 

 ^nd then believed that the bird had been dis- 



Surhed, aud out of several hundred of these 

 lests examined by me 1 have never found but 

 hree sets of seven, and, as stated above, 1 do 

 hot believe they were all laid by one bird, but 1 

 i'ouud that belief on the scarceness of such 

 sets rather than on any tangible evidence. 



The usual number of eggs found in a set is 

 five or six in abotit the proportion of two of 

 five to one of six. 

 I The eggs are strikingly handsome, and pre- 

 sent a very great variety of size, color, and 

 l)iarkings. To my eye they are among the 

 iiost beautiful examples of our American eggs, 



1 o.&O. XIV. Mar. 1889 p.37 



particularly when fresh, when they present the 

 pink cast of shell so common to birds' eggs, 

 and which is lost on blowing them. They vary 

 from a light background, almost obscured by 

 lavender, reddish-brown, purple and black 

 spots, and blotches, giving the egg something 

 of a chocolate cast at a distance, to a pure 

 white shell sparsely but boldly spotted with 

 the above colors, and occasi(mally a yellowish 

 phase is taken, which is very rare. Once I 

 took a white set. 



The shell is strong, hard, smooth, and with 

 something of the gloss of a woodpeckei''s egg. 

 Once in a wliile a person will find a set of their 

 eggs that has tlie shell rough and calcarous. 

 This is something tliat to my mind is, as yet, 

 unsatisfactnrily explained. 



'Die ai'/.c of t)u?se eggs is given by the books 

 as .70x..")i;, and is approximately correct. Tet 

 they vary greatly, and I have taken eggs that 

 would vary from these figures both larger and 

 smaller fully .10 of an inch, and I have in my 

 collection one "runt" egg of this species that 

 is not much larger than a pea. It measures 

 .48 x .40. The other four eggs in this set aver- 

 age .73x.. 55. The "little fellow" is in every 

 way as perfectly marked and formed as any of 

 its larger brothers. 



Incubation lasts about two weeks and is en- 

 tirely performed by the female bird, but after 

 the young are hatched the male turns in and 

 helps to feed the family. This is about the 

 only work 1 know of liis doing. Their food 

 consists mainly of the small insects found in 

 the swamps, and the old birds rarely go far 

 from their home until the young are able to 

 fly, when they hunt in families for some time, 

 and usually leave us for the South about Sep- 

 tember 1st, and we have seen the last of our 

 golden-colored little friends until the next 

 season. 



R. M. Barnes. 



Lacon, Illinois. 



[The experience of Mr. Barnes respecting 

 the numljcr of eggs laid by this bird is differ- 

 ent from that of a collector near Burlington, 

 Iowa. Out of forty-two sets collected by him 

 only one set consisted of five eggs, and one set 

 four eggs; while twenty- three sets had six 

 eggs each, fifteen sets contained seven eggs 

 each, and one extreme set consisted of eight. 

 The set of four eggs also had four of the Cow- 

 bird, the set of five had three of the same para- 

 site, while eleven of the sets of six each had 

 one Cowbird's egg, and four of the sets of 

 seven also had one each of the same pest. 



A series of sixty-six sets of eggs of this 



warbler now before me contains tin oe sets of 

 ..3gfoiir each, seventeen sets of live, thii ty sets of 



six, fifteen sets of seven, and one set of eight. 



