Wilde, Nesting of the Partila Warbler. 



291 



in the interior, the eye can penetrate but a few yards among the 

 thickly clustered trunks. The Parula Warblers do not breed 

 within these dense, dark, cedar-swamps, but may occasionally be 

 found breeding on their borders. 



Between that portion of the ponds where the cedars are more 

 open, and the dense cedar-swamps above, the small channels are 

 so choked up with bushes, and tangled, twisted, moss-covered 

 branches of the scrub-cedars, that progress in a flat-bottom boat 

 (which is the safest way to travel through this region, on account 

 of the uncertainty of the bogs) is very slow and laborious. 



A few remarks on the streams, and southern tributaries of 

 Dennis Creek, would probably be of interest. 



The mill-dam on Sluice Creek, the southeastern branch of Dennis 

 Creek, forms a lake half a mile in length, and marks the north- 

 western extremity of the ' Timber and Beaver Swamp,' which 

 stretches away nearly three miles to the east. The extensions of 

 this creek south of the lake referred to, are gradually drained of 

 their water by the swamps, which as I have already intimated^ 

 have been formed by the flatness of the land. 



These swamps are bordered with tall bushes, beyond which 

 are woods of chestnut, oak, beech, laurel, and pitch-pine, inter- 

 spersed with a large quantity of holly, while the swamps themselves 

 outside of the main channels, are overgrown with sassafras, maple, 

 cedar, gum, magnolia, and various kinds of bushes, including 

 bush-huckleberry, cranberry, alder and cedar, the whole being 

 interwoven with thorny green-briars. Jhe crooked and twisted 

 branches of these trees and bushes are nearly all draped with 

 beard-moss. Numerous open sphagnum and cranberry bogs are 

 also scattered throughout this region. 



Among the beautiful moss-covered trees and bushes already 

 described, the Parula Warblers congregate in large numbers, to 

 make their summer home. They arrive from the south appar- 

 ently already paired, about the first of May, and by the second 

 week have commenced nest building. 



Nests can be found from the border to the middle of the mill- 

 ponds and swamps, and may be looked for anywhere from under 

 the tip of an outstretched or drooping branch to against the tree 

 trunk, or in smaller bushes, and from one foot above the water to 



