Nesting of the Blackburnian Warbler. 



Last June, my brotlier and I left Boston to 

 visit a friend who had a place near the foot of 

 Mount Monadnock, N. II. The morning after 

 our arrival we started for a stroll down the 

 road which ran by the house — he with a fish- 

 ing rod, I with a gnu — and after a while came 

 to a grove of thirty or forty large hemloclfs, 

 from sixty to seventy-five feet high. 



As there did not seem to be anything there 

 we were about to continue our walk, when I 

 heard a note something like the song of a 

 Black and White Creeper but much stronger, 

 and almost immediately discovered a Black- 

 burnian Warbler (Dendroica hlackburnim) 

 perched on a maple near the grove. But we 

 were seen at tlie same instant and the bird 

 with its mate, which was near by, flew off over 

 the tree-tops, leaving us without any hope of 

 seeing them again. All the same, we con- 

 cluded to look around the grove, but could 

 find nothing but two Chipping Sparrows' nests 

 : and a suspicious looking bunch near the end 

 of a brancli of one of the hemlocks, about 

 ; sixty feet from the ground. But as such 

 bunches are common enough anywhere, and 

 we could see the sky through this one, I 

 thought it would be of no use to examine it 

 more closely. Therefore we went on down 

 the road but did not find anything else, except- 

 ing one trout and three "suckers" that my 

 brother caught. 



The next day we passed the grove again and 

 again we heard tlie Blackburnian Warbler 

 singing. Thinking it strange that it should 

 have come back, we crept into the grove as 

 quietly as possible and had just come to the 

 point from which the "bunch," found the day 

 before, could be seen through tlie brandies, 

 when the Warbler, with its bright orange 

 throat contrasting strongly with the dark back- 

 ground of tlie grove, darted out of the trees a 

 little way off, straight up to the bunch, and, 

 liovering over it an instant, settled down upon 

 it. I have never found a nest so suddenly and 

 I unexpectedly as this one, and I was not long 

 I in getting up to it. Then I could see three 

 eggs, but could not reach tliem as they were 

 too far out on the branch. Wishing to get the 

 full set, we left the nest until next day, 

 when I succeeded in getting the nest by tying 

 the branch to the one above it and then cutting 

 it off, after which I drew it in and thoroughly 

 enjoyed looking at the eggs, five in number, 

 before touching the nest. ' ' 



As soon as I commenced cutting off tlie ' 



branch, both birds who, until then, had only 

 watched from a distance, became very much 

 excited and began flying around, sometimes 

 within two or three feet of me, and uttering 

 sliarp chirps. One of them lit on the branch, 

 although it was shaking considerably, so that 

 there can be no doubt that it belonged to tliem. 

 But in order that there should be no doubt at 

 all I shot the male, who, when he saw that he 

 could do nothing, had perched himself on a 

 neighboring branch where lie was pluming 

 himself as if nothing had hajspened. 



The nest was about sixty feet from the 

 ground, seven feet from the trunk of the tree 

 and four inches from the main stem of the 

 branch. It was set into a thick cluster of 

 rather small twigs which held it firmly so that 

 it could not blow away; for, with the excep- 

 tion of the last morning it was blowing a gale, 

 day and night, during our entire stay. It is 

 composed of hemlock twigs, rootlets and a few 

 pine needles, with here and there a bit of 

 .Spanish moss, all woven rather loosely together 

 and lined with horse-Iiair. The diameter ex- 

 ternally, three and a quarter inches; internally, 

 two inclies, and it is two inches deep. The 

 bottom is so tliin that it can easily be seen 

 through,— it was this that almost caused our 

 overlooking it. 



The eggs vary very little in size and shape, 

 being .68X.53, .67x..54, .67x.54, .6'7x.53, ' 

 .67x.53. They are greenish-white in ground 

 color, spotted and blotched all over, but most 

 thickly at tlie larger end, with different shades 

 of purple and brown which in some is nearly 

 black. They were collected June 7th, and incu- 

 bation had just begun, so that they must have 

 been all laid when the nest was first found, ! 

 although I could see only tliree. C. W. B. 



^'^0, j Rootj a ao, pr y ^'7- 



