38 
THE PIKE CREEPING WOOD-WARBLER. 
and Eastern States. In the Carolinas, for instance, it is usually placed among 
the dangling fibres of the Spanish moss, with less workmanship and less care 
than in the Jerseys, the State of New York, or that of Maine. In the latter, 
as well as in Massachusetts, where it breeds about the middle of June, it 
places its nest at a great height, sometimes fifty feet, attaching it to the twigs 
of a forked branch. Here the nest is small, thin but compact, composed of 
the slender stems of dried grasses mixed with coarse fibrous roots and the 
exuvim of caterpillars or other insects, and lined with the hair of the deer, 
moose, racoon, or other animals, delicate fibrous roots, wool, and feathers. 
The eggs, which are from four to six, have a very light sea-green tint, all 
over sprinkled with small pale reddish-brown dots, of which there is a 
thicker circle near the larger end. In these districts, it seldom breeds more 
than once in the season, whereas in the Carolinas, Georgia, and the Floridas, 
where it is a constant resident, it usually has two, sometimes three, broods 
in the year, and its eggs are deposited on the first days of April, fully a 
month earlier than in the State above mentioned. 
Its flight is short, and exhibits undulating curves of considerable elegance. 
It migrates entirely by day, flying from tree to tree, and seldom making a 
longer flight than is necessary for crossing a river. The song is monotonous, 
consisting at times merely of a continued tremulous sound, which may be 
represented by the letters trr-rr-rr-rr. During the love season, this is 
changed into a more distinct sound, resembling twe, twe , te, te, te, tee. It 
sings at all hours of the day, even in the heat of summer noon, when the 
woodland songsters are usually silent. 
It is a hardy bird, seldom abandoning the most northern of the Eastern 
States until the middle of October. I saw none beyond the Province of 
New Brunswick, and Professor MacCulloch of Pictou had not observed 
it in Nova Scotia. In Newfoundland and Labrador I did not see a single 
individual. 
I have placed a pair of these birds on a branch of their favourite pine ; 
but the colouring of the male is not so brilliant as it is in spring and 
summer, the individual represented having been drawn in Louisiana in the 
winter, where, as well as in the Carolinas, the Floridas, and all the Southern 
Districts, it is a constant resident. 
I have already mentioned that the Pine Creeping Wai'bler is the parent 
of Vigors’s Warbler. Of this fact I gave intimation to the Prince of 
Musignano, during his recent visit to London. I found it abundant in the 
Texas, where it breeds. 
Pine Creeping Warbler, Sylvia pinus, Wils. Amer. Orn., vol. iii. p. 25. 
Sylvia pinus, Bonap. Syn., p. 81. 
