236 
SINGING BIRDS. 
ditty. On their first arrival, previous to pairing, these birds 
are like the rest of the genus, restless, and intently engaged 
in the chase of insects amidst the blossoms and tender leaves ; 
they likewise pursue common and green bottle flies with avidity 
and success. On the 27th of June, 1831, I observed a pair 
selecting food for their young, with their usual address and 
activity, by the margin of a bushy and secluded swamp on the 
west side of Fresh Pond, in this vicinity ; but I had not the 
good fortune to discover the nest. I have, however, since, I 
believe, discovered the nest of this bird, in a hazel copse in a 
wood in Acton, in this State. It is fixed in the forked twigs of 
a hazel about breast high. The fabric is rather light and airy, 
being made externally of a few coarse blades and stalks of 
dead grass, then filled in with finer blades of the same, the 
whole matted and tied with caterpillar’s silk, and lined with 
very slender strips of brown bark and similar white -pine leaves. 
It appeared to have been forsaken before its completion, and 
the eggs I have never seen. 
In the woods around Farranville, on the Susquehanna, 
within the range of the Alleghany chain, in the month of May, 
1830, I saw and heard several males in full song, in the 
shady forest trees by a small stream, and have no doubt of 
their breeding in that situation, though I was not fortunate 
enough to find a nest. 
This species is now a common summer resident of New England 
and the settled portions of Canada, and occurs westward to the 
Plains. It breeds in numbers as far south as the fortieth parallel, 
and regularly, though sparingly, on the elevated lands southward 
to Georgia, and I have found the nest in New Brunswick north of 
latitude 47°. It winters southward to the Bahamas and Central 
America. 
