ORNITHOLOGIST 
— AND- 
OdLOGIST. 
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Joseph M. Wade, Editor and Publisher. 
Established, March. 1875. 
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VOL. VI. 
NORWICH, CONN., SEPTEMBER, i 88 i. 
NO. 7 . 
Kentucky Warbler. 
ITS NESTING HABITS 
Kentucky Warbler, Opororius formosa. 
Season of 1881. Locality, Wheatland, 
Knox Co., Ind. The first specimen was 
taken April 2 ist, and a week later they were 
common in all the bottom woods. This 
name applies to the heavy timbered tracts 
that are overflowed by the rising of rivers. 
The woods in such places are high and 
dense, almost to the exclusion of under¬ 
growth. 
In its habits the Kentucky Warbler re¬ 
sembles the Golden Crowned Thrush, 
walking deliberately on the ground and 
mounting a log or low limb to sing. The 
song is a ringing whistle, a miniature of the 
Cardinal Grosbeak’s, which it much resem¬ 
bles. It is by no means shy; on the con¬ 
trary it quickly resents an intruder, flying 
from branch to branch constantly uttering 
its mellow chirp Roth birds take part in 
these demonstrations and seem as anxious 
before as after they have nests. 
May 9th, I flushed a pair and found a 
partially made nest, but having to leave for 
a month, Mr Ridgway collected and pre¬ 
pared the set for me, May i8th, then with 
four fresh eggs. June 7th, I took the* last 
nest of the season with four fresh eggs, also 
at Wheatland. The time intervening was 
spent at Mt. Carmel, Ill., where seven 
others were found in various stages of in¬ 
cubation. 
.'V nesting place is usually selected on a 
slightly raised piece of ground for a dry 
situation, and a large hollow, 7 to 10 inches 
across, is made among the dead leaves. 
This is filled in first with leaves very nicely 
arranged for the outside; then dry grass 
stalks and delicate limbs are put together 
more solidly and lined with fine roots and 
usually a very few hairs. The outside 
leaves are difficult to remove with the in¬ 
ner nest. Some nests are placed between 
the several stems of bushes but are all so 
sunken in the leaves as to have the upper 
rim even with the surface. The hollow in 
the nest is large and deep. Five eggs was 
the largest number taken. In shape and 
color they resemble finely dotted Chats and 
Golden Crowned Thrushes, and are about 
the size of those of the Indigo bird. It is 
only by accident that the nest is found, as 
the sitting bird has to be almost stepped 
upon before leaving it. It sometimes 
feigns injury, fluttering along the ground; 
at others leaves quietly. Once it was al¬ 
most accidental that I noticed the move¬ 
ment of the leaves of a small plant caused 
by the bird as it left the nest.— F. T. Jencks. 
Black Throated Blue Warbler 
NESTING IN CONNECTICUT. 
I have succeeded this year O881) in 
finding another nest of Dendrosca ccerules- 
cens, being the third nest of this species that 
I have found in this town. (See Bull. Nutt. 
Orn. Club, Vol. L, p. ii.) The nest was 
in a large tract of woods, as were the others, 
on a hillside near low, swampy ground 
through which ran a small brook. It was 
placed in a laurel bush, ten inches from the 
ground, resting on two long, slender and 
nearly horizontal branches. The eggs, four 
in number, were far advanced in incuba¬ 
tion, although it was on the seventh of June 
that I found them, while the eggs that I 
