Page:The Singing Tree - William Henry Mousley - The Auk 36(3) - P0339-p0348.pdf/7

Vol. XXXVI 1919 make off, and I knew by this that he had probably observed the female and was after her; but as often as not I was in the opposite direction, and was unable to follow them quickly enough to obtain their exact whereabouts, and often the male was not seen again for some considerable time. During such intervals I search all the likely looking spots and incidentally often come across the nests of other birds (as will be seen hereafter) the males of which had been noticed in the same places from time to time during my long enforced periods of watching.

The Blackburnian is certainly a great singer, or at least I should say persistent one, for the song cannot by any stretch of the imagination be said to be great. During my long acquaintance with this one he sang off and on for most of the time, and I have noticed the same thing to occur with others that I have watched for shorter periods. The next contained a full set of four eggs on June 18. And now for the afternoon of June 24, a record one in many ways, for besides being the first occasion on which I had ever seen a Bay-breasted Warbler (Dendroica castanea) here in the summer, I had also the pleasure of finding its nest and eggs, and thus being able to add it to my breeding list, to say nothing of the nests of a Black-throated Green Warbler (Dendroica virens), and Magnolia Warbler (Dendroica magnolia) that also fell to my lot, as well as one of an Olive-backed Thrush (Hylocichla swainsonii ), thus constituting a record for my system for a period of about four hours.

Now to begin with I was on my way to the Cape May Warbler ground, to reach which I had to pass within some two hundred yards or less of the site of the nest of the Blackburnian Warbler already described, when my attention was drawn to a song that puzzled me. It seemed similar to that of a Blackburnian except that it was sometimes given in two keys, and seemed to be generally louder. On looking in the direction from which it came I espied much to my astonishment in the topmost (dead) branches of a birch tree a fine male Bay-breasted Warbler (Dendroica castanea). To say that the Cape May was forgotten is putting it somewhat mildly, as I never even gave him a thought again that afternoon, so elated was I at finding a singing male of this rarity, and thus