Since then Mr. Ridgway has obtained a nest at Mt. Carmel, Ill. It was built in a hollow snag, about five feet from the ground, in the river bottom. So far from being noisy and vociferous, as its name would seem to imply, Mr. Ridgway describes it as one of the shyest and most silent of all the Warblers.
The eggs of this Warbler have an average breadth of .55 of an inch and a length varying from .65 to .70 of an inch. They are of a rounded-oval form, one end being but slightly less rounded than the other. Their ground-color is a yellowish or creamy white, more or less profusely marked over their entire surface with lilac, purple, and a dark purplish-brown.
Mr. Ridgway states that it is always an abundant summer bird in the Wabash bottoms, where it inhabits principally bushy swamps and the willows around the borders of stagnant lagoons or “ponds” near the river, and in such localities, in company with the White-bellied Swallow (Hirundo bicolor), takes possession of the holes of the Downy Woodpecker (Picus pubescens) and Chickadee (Parus carolinensis), in which to build its nest.
Mr. Ridgway adds that in its movements this Warbler is slow and deliberate, like the Helmitherus vermivorus, strikingly different in this respect from the sprightly, active Dendroecæ. Its common note is a sharp piph, remarkably like the winter note of the Zonotrichia albicollis.
It has been taken as far north as Rock Island, Ill., and Dr. Coues mentions the occurrence of one individual near Washington, D. C., seen in a swampy brier-patch, May 2, 1861. This was perhaps only an accidental visitor. If regularly found there, it is probably exceedingly rare. It has not been met with between Washington and St. Stephens, New Brunswick, where its occurrence was unquestionably purely accidental.
Genus HELMITHERUS, Raf.
Helmitherus, Rafinesque, Journal de Physique, LXXXVIII, 1819, 417. (Type, Motacilla vermivora.)
Vermivora, Swainson, Zoöl. Jour. IV. 1827, 170 (not of Meyer, 1822).
Helinaia, Aud. Synopsis, 1839, 66. (Type, Sylvia swainsoni, Aud.)
