Plate XV. 
DEIIDRCECA /ESTIVA— Summer Warbler. 
The subject of this sketch is the most abundant of all our resident warblers, and except the Yellow- 
breasted Chat there is no other of the family whose nest is so easily found. 
About the fifteenth of April they arrive in Central Ohio, and by the twentieth of May nidification 
is with the majority completed, and with many incubation has commenced. In July a second brood is 
sometimes reared, and later perhaps even a third. 
LOCALITY : 
In the country the nest is usually placed in the trees and bushes which glow along roads, fences, 
levees, banks of streams, and similar places. The young trees, especially elms, which grow in narrow 
belts along ponds and creeks, or scattered sparingly near by some water-course, seem to be preferred 
above others ; but the driest districts are by no means deserted. In towns, the horse-chestnut, elm, 
maple, and other shade trees, and the shrubbery of the lawn or garden arc the most frequented localities. 
POSITION : 
The nest is saddled upon a branch inclined at an angle of about 45°, and is supported by small 
branches about the circumference; or is placed in a fork, either perpendicular or horizontal; or is built 
among a number of small stems growing so closely together as to form a suitable resting-place. The 
first position is by far the commonest, and the last the rarest. Its distance from the ground is ordinarily 
between ten and fifteen feet, but occasionally it is in the top branch of a medium-sized tree. When 
situated in a bush it is sometimes within a foot of the ground. Along the west shore of Seneca Lake, 
Yew York, near Geneva, the Yellow Warbler is the most abundant of any of the summer birds. In the 
years 1871— ’75 I found them nesting plentifully in the shrubbery growing within a few feet of the water, 
at the foot of the steep bank which forms the shore. Of the dozens of nests observed in this neighbor- 
hood, certainty more than half were placed in low bushes ; but in this State by far the greater number 
are built in young trees. 
MATERIALS : 
The outside of the nest is generally composed of silver-gray weed-fibres, varying in breadth from 
the thickness of a hair to three-sixteenths of an inch. They are arranged loosely in some specimens, 
hanging an inch or two below the bottom ; in others they are drawn tightly, being almost felted together. 
In place of fibres, wool, cotton, and finely split grasses are frequently used. But whatever composes the 
exterior, there is almost invariably beneath it a layer of fine round or split grasses of a yellowish or 
reddish-brown hue, which extends to the rim, where it is woven in with the materials of the outside. 
IJpon this layer of grass is placed the lining ; it usually consists of plant-down, over which a few horse- 
hairs or pieces of roller-grass are placed, as if to keep it in position. Sometimes the down is dun-colored, 
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