- Breeds:
- Through its United States range and northward.
- Nest:
- Cup-like, pensile in slender forked branch of maple, birch, or apple tree; made of bark fibres, cobwebs, bits of paper, scraps of hornets' nests, eto.
- Eggs:
- 3-5, usually 4, white, with brown spots on the larger end.
Range:
- Eastern North America to the Rocky Mountains, north to the Arctic regions.
The Vireos are a very interesting family, which, though it may be somewhat overlooked in the general spring chorus, comes to the front in the latter part of May. Of the six Vireos that inhabit New England, five are reasonably plentiful, and of these the Red-eyed is the most familiar. You cannot fail to name this Vireo, for he is omnipresent; if you do not see him, you hear him; if he chances to be silent, which seldom happens, he peers at you with his sparkling, ruby eyes that look out between a white line and a brown stripe. Wilson Flagg has forever identified him with the name of the Preacher, in reference to his elocutionary powers. "You see it — you know it, — do you hear me? Do you believe it?" he hears the Vireo say, and if you keep these words in your mind you will recognize the bird the first time that you hear his song.
May, June, July, and August, and still this Vireo sings on; in mid-August he does not articulate as nicely perhaps, but as the month ends he has recovered his speech and delivers a farewell exhortation in September.
Four pairs nested in the garden this season, and after the young had flown the parents stayed about the same trees, singing from five in the morning on through the scorching noontime- when the locust strove in vain to drone them down — until sunset sometimes, never leaving the particular tree where they began. Not that they sit and prate in a state of idleness; — far from it, they are constantly gleaning their daily bread. This is very well for Matins and Vespers, but the noon song becomes monotonous, it is in one key, and there is such a thing even as too much good conver-sation. At noon in summer, silence softened by the whispering leaves is best. At such times the Vireo seems to me
117
