Painted

1912

Published

1930

Volume

11

Plate

645-645a

Nashville Warbler

Vermivora rubricapilla rubricapilla

A few miles west of Portland, Maine, in a clearing which had once been part of an abandoned farm but now given over to white birches, I found these birds very numerous in the first week of June. When I first discovered the little colony I thought they were Rubycrown Kinglets for they are restless and almost as active as those gray-green midgets. That grove belonged to them and from the tops of the birches their strong peculiar song fairly dominated the area. I lay under one of the trees for nearly three hours, eating lunch and smoking, and I believe there was not a single minute when one of the birds was silent.

It was not difficult to locate their nests for the birds apparently mistook me for some kind of a cow and one home within fifteen feet of where I sat was visited repeatedly by the male, probably to see that the lady was attending to her duties.

BREEDING

NEST: Of dry moss, grasses and leaves, lined with pine needles and grass; located on the ground under the shelter of bushes or small trees and sometimes in marsh tussocks.

EGGS: White or creamy, spotted with chestnut and lilac, more or less wreathed at large end.

RANGE

Eastern North America, north of New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Illinois.

Calaveras Warbler

Vermivora rubricapilla gutturalis

BREEDING

NEST AND EGGS: Similar to Nashville Warbler, frequently placed on open prairie.

RANGE

Pacific Coast region, north to British Columbia, east to Sierra Nevada, eastern Oregon and Idaho.

Texas Elder

Sambucus mexicana

A 25-foot tree with trunk sometimes bulged at base; distributed from western Texas thru southern New Mexico and Arizona to southern California.

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