OLOGIST 



[Vol. iS-No. I 



1ST. 



7 



A Few Days Among the Blue- 

 winged Warblers. 



My experience of past years with this 

 species (^Hehninthophila pimis) , has been 

 that on the last of May or the first of June, 

 when I found a nest, the eggs were oftener 

 heavily incubated than fresh, so the past 

 season I thought I would start a week 

 earlier. 



I left the city on May 21st, my object 

 being to locate the birds on their breeding 

 sites and see if they had commenced nest 

 building. I spent the afternoon of the 

 3ist, all day of the 32d and 23d tramping 

 over the country wherever I knew of a 

 suitable site, and at the end of the third 

 day 1 had an attack of the blues of the very 

 worst kind. 



The weather for the three days was raw 

 and cloudy and I located only one pair of 

 birds. I felt very badly over my poor luck 

 and told my farmer friend who goes with 

 me on all my egg tramps and knows as 

 much about them as I do, but who is no 

 collector, that I thought the birds had 

 deserted their old breeding grounds, and 

 that I did not think I would bother with 

 them any more that season as I felt sure they 

 were not there. He had more courage 

 than I had, however, and said that he 

 was not going to give up without another 

 fight when I left him at the depot on Mon- 

 day evening, where he had taken me to 

 meet my train for the city. He told me 

 that the first bright, sunny day he would 

 look after them again and that I would 

 hear good news from him before the week 

 was out. 



I did not have much hope of receiving 

 the good news he promised, but imagine 

 my surprise when on Friday of that week 

 I received a letter telling me to come up 

 on Saturday as he had found two nests. 



On the evening of the 38th I took the 

 I train for my friend's place, he meeting me 

 ' at the station when the train arrived. 



I tall grass, blackberry and raspberry 

 5. The Sunday before we had been over 

 site and I thought it was impossible 

 , nest to be there and we not find it, 

 such must have been the case, for upon 

 ing near it I sent my friend to examine 

 od site for a pair to take up in, telling 

 1 would examine the old one but with 

 ope of success. I went the length of 

 )oking carefully into every place large 

 igh to contain a nest and had nearly 

 hed the corner of the fence and almost 

 last vine when out hopped the little 

 ■-wing. I stepped up to the vine, 

 ed into the nest, counted the eggs, rub- 

 my eyes, looked and counted again, 

 led my eyes, counted the third time 

 yelled to ray friend the number, seven. 

 r packing them, we threw ourselves 

 iie ground in the shade of a large oak 

 talked the matter over, and we both 

 e to the same conclusion that the nest 

 t have been there when we looked for 

 week before. 



fter taking a half hour's rest and re- 

 ling ourselves with a drink of cold 

 ig water, we started for another site, 

 re we found a pair of birds. The 

 an before this was a narrow strip of 

 r ground on the edge of a wood about 

 lighth of a mile in length, ovei-grown 

 I bushes and vines of many different 

 ts. We started in at the west end and 

 ' going about half way we knew the 

 s were there by hearing their song ; 

 hunted the whole length of the wood 



came to the conclusion that they had 

 er hidden their nest so well that we 

 ■looked it or else had not commenced 

 ;t, when reaching the end of the wood 

 ;re a fence divided it from a clover field 

 e was a small cluster of raspberry vines ; 

 ping over to them and looking on the 

 ind I saw the nest with little or no 

 :ection ; it contained two eggs. On 

 e 3d my friend secured the nest with 



eggs. 



