Among the memoranda furnished to the late Mr. Kennicott by Mr. Ross is one to the effect that the Chestnut-sided Warbler was observed at Lake of the Woods, May 29. How common it is at this point is not stated.
Mr. C. S. Paine regards the Chestnut-sided Warbler as one of the sweetest singers that visit Vermont. He describes it as very confiding and gentle in its habits. It is chiefly found inhabiting low bushes, in the neighborhood of taller trees, and it always builds its nest in the fork of a low bush, not more than from three to five feet from the ground. He has seen many of their nests, and they have all been in similar situations. They will permit a very near approach without leaving their nests. These are constructed about the last of May. Their song continues until about the last of June. After this they are seldom heard.
J. Elliot Cabot, Esq., had the good fortune to be the first of our naturalists to discover in June, 1839, the nest and eggs of this Warbler. It was fixed on the horizontal forked branch of an oak sapling, in Brookline, Mass. The female remained sitting on her nest until so closely approached as to be distinctly seen. The nest was of strips of red-cedar bark, and well lined with coarse hair, and was compact, elastic, and shallow. It contained four eggs, the ground-color of which was white, over which were distributed numerous distinct spots of umber-brown. These were of different sizes, more numerous towards the larger end.
In regard to their breeding in Pennsylvania, Mr. Nuttall mentions in the second edition of his work that he met them among the Alleghanies at Farranville in full song, and had no doubt that they were nesting there at the time.
The Chestnut-sided Warbler usually constructs its nest in localities apart from cultivated grounds, on the edges of low and swampy woods, but in places more or less open. Quite a number of their nests have been met with by Mr. George O. Welch, of Lynn, Mass. Their more common situation has been barberry-bushes. The nests vary from about two and a half to three and a half inches in external height, and have a diameter of from three to four inches. The cavity is about two inches deep. They are usually composed externally of loosely intertwined strips of the bark of the smaller vegetables, strengthened by a few stems and bits of dry grasses, and lined with woolly vegetable fibres and a few soft hairs of the smaller animals. They are usually very firmly bound to the smaller branches by silky fibres from the cocoons of various insects. These nests were all found in open places, in low, wild marshy localities, but none far from a cultivated neighborhood, and the
situations chosen for the nests do not differ materially from those usually selected by the common D. æstiva.
The eggs of this Warbler are of an oblong-oval shape, have a ground-color of a rich creamy-white, and are beautifully spotted, chiefly about the larger end, with two shades of purple and purplish-brown. They measure .65 by .49 of an inch.
Dendroica striata, Baird.
BLACK-POLL WARBLER.
Muscicapa striata, Forster, Phil. Trans. LXII, 383, 428. Motacilla s. Gmelin. Sylvia s. Lath.; Vieillot; Wils.; Bon.; Nutt.; Aud. Orn. Biog. II, pl. cxxxiii.—Lembeye, Av. Cuba, 1850, 33. Sylvicola s. Swainson; Bon.; Aud. Birds Am. II, pl. lxxviii.—Reinhardt, Vid. Med. for 1853, 1854, 73 (Greenland).—Max. Cab. Jour. VI, 1858, 113. Mniotilta s. Reinh. Ibis, 1861, 6 (Greenland). Rhimanphus s. Cab. Jour. III, 475 (Cuba). Dendroica s. Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 280; Rev. 192.—Coues, Pr. A. N. Sc. 1861, 220 (Labrador coast).—Gundl. Cab. Jour. 1861, 326 (Cuba; rare).—Samuels, 233.—Dall & Bannister (Alaska). ? D. atricapilla, Landbeck, Wiegmann’s Archiv, 1864, 56 (Chile).