290 



Wilde, Nesting of the Panda Warbler. 



I desire to speak more particularly of the ponds, and large 

 shallow stretches of water above the mill-dams, together with the 

 small winding streams which supply them, as these are the local- 

 ities where the long-bearded lichen or ' beard-moss ' ( Usnea bar- 

 bata), in which the Parula Warblers almost invariably construct 

 their nests, grows most abundantly. 



The mill-ponds formed by the streams north of the Dennis 

 Creek are wholly or partly hemmed in by dense thickets of 

 various kinds of bushes, beyond which, almost as far as the eye 

 can see, the higher dry land or as I might better say the hot 

 'Jersey Sand-Barrens,' are overgrown with scrub-oaks \Quercus 

 ilicifolid)., interspersed with a few tall pines (^Pinus rigida), while 

 other portions are cleared for farming purposes. 



In the upper portion of the northern mill-ponds the numerous 

 small cedar-bushes, which when fullgrown may only be termed 

 scrub-cedars {Chamcecyfaris thyoides), together with other trees and 

 bushes, all of which are often matted together in small clumps or 

 islands, are nearly all draped with festoons of ' beard-moss.' In 

 addition to this, dead stumps of the cleared off timber still 

 project out of the water, and many of their decayed tops being 

 covered with smaller vegetation and ' beard-moss,' also help to 

 beautify the mill-ponds. Various ericaceous bushes and open 

 sphagnum bogs are scattered throughout this region, and these 

 bogs often continue to the very sources of the small streams 

 which supply the mill-ponds with water. 



The Parula Warblers breed undisturbed in these secluded 

 spots, where the Kingbirds may be seen with outstretched wings, 

 swaying on the topmost branches of the cedars, and where 

 insects and Hummingbirds {Trochilus coltibris) may be heard, as 

 they swiftly wing their way across the ponds. Uninterested 

 persons seldom if ever intrude, probably on account of the ' out- 

 of-the-way ' localities, and the difficulties connected with pene- 

 trating the dense bushes which surround 'their breeding grounds. 



The trees here in the upper portion of the mill-ponds increase in 

 size, gradually culminating into dense red-water cedar-swamps, as 

 they follow the small streams to their sources. 



Viewed from a short distance these saturated cedar-swamps 

 present the appearance of a solid mass of dark green, and when 



