102 
ORNITHOLOGIST 
[Vol. 7-No. 13. 
Hooded Warbler. 
NESTING IN SOUTHERN CONN. 
The interest manifested by readers of 
my article in O. and O. last Spring about 
the liabits, &c., of the Hooded Warbler, 
shown by the reception of letters relating 
to the subject from eveiy quarter of the 
country, excited me to still closer observa- 
tion of this bird’s habits during the past 
season. Though I was there almost every 
day, the first week of May pa ssed without 
my hearing the familiar note of this bird, 
an unusual circumstance but readily ex- 
plained by the cold stormy weather then 
prevailing ; but on the 9tli in their usual 
haunts I heard the clear ringing note of a 
solitary male from a Kalmia thicket, dis- 
tinctly repeated every three or four min- 
utes, and two days after the same sprightly 
song was resounding from every Kalmia 
thicket in the deep woods. I sat on a 
stump and watched a male as he sang. He 
was perched on the dead branch of a tree 
about ten feet from the ground, and seemed 
wholly absorbed in his own musical per 
formance regardless of my presence and of 
the other vocalists chanting in the vicinity. 
Every two or three minutes lie would 
throw back his head and with much appa- 
rent exertion deliver himself of his note, 
loud, clear, ringing, completely drowning 
the voices of the Oven Birds and the Red- 
starts who were trying to be heard all 
around him. I tried to put what he was 
saying into syllables, and he seemed to 
say “Pe-ter Pe-ter Re-gis-ter” every sylla- 
ble distinctly articulated, sometimes he 
would vary his chant by abbreviating it to 
“ Pe-ter Re-gis-ter ” and then extend it to 
“ Pe-ter Pe ter Pe-ter Re-gis-ter” again oc- 
casionally varying it with simply “ Regis- 
ter,” in this case accenting his first syllable. 
This expression seemed so clear and dis- 
tinct that whenever I have since heard the 
bird it recalls it instantly, and I have been 
able to substitute no other syllables satis- 
factorily to represent their song to my 
mind. 
Incubation was correspondingly later 
this year, the first set of four fresh eggs I 
found June 1st. This nest was within a 
few feet of the place where I found a nest 
in 1880 and another in 1879. I found an 
unfinished nest the same day and watched 
the female bird as she flew back and forth 
with the nesting materials, sometimes ac- 
companied by her mate who constantly 
cheered her on with his best songs about 
“ Pe-ter Pe-ter Reg-is-ter.” I noticed that 
he did all the singiug and she all the work ; 
the female wherever she went, on the ground 
or on the nest, repeated her loud “tchip” * 
almost constantly even with her beak full 
of nesting material. This was Monday and 
on Saturday following when I visited the 
nest I found one egg in it and the bird 
scolding at a squirrel that was chirruping 
near. On the next Tuesday I found no 
bird or squrrel there and the nest empty. 
On the whole the bird was much less 
abundant this year than usual. I only 
found six nests and took four sets, one of 
these contained the unusual number of five, 
and was built in an unusual position, a 
wild rose bush. This is the only set ex- 
ceeding four that I ever found. Some one 
asked about the lining of their nests and I 
have been amused upon examination of a 
half dozen nests that I have, to find no two 
of them lined alike; here is one lined al- 
most wholly with coarse hair from the tail 
of horse or cattle, another with very fine 
fibres of grape vine bark, another very fine 
grass, another mixed grass and hair, and 
one wholly with fine black roots. I think 
mixed grass and hair most common but 
upon strict examination the variation quite 
surprised me. — J. N. Clark, Old Say- 
brook, Conn. 
(* In a previous article on the nesting 
habits of this bird which appeared in our 
April number, this word was distorted by 
our printer into “ telip” much to the an- 
noyance of our contributor who is too 
close an observer to make any such blun- 
der. — Ed.) 
O.&O. Yll.Max, 1882. p. /a. 
(c 
