314 INSECTIVOROUS BIRDS. 



When our Vireo sings slow enough to be distinctly 

 heard, the following sweetly warbled phrases, variously 

 transposed and tuned, may often be caught by the atten- 

 tive listener : 'tshooe pcioce peeai musik 'du 'du 'du, 

 'tshoove 'here 'here, hear hhre, 'kHng 'ritshard, 'jj'shegru 

 'tshevu, Hsheevoo 'tshuvee peeait 'p^roi. The whole de- 

 livered almost without any sensible interval, with earnest 

 animation, in a pathetic, tender, and pleasing strain, well 

 calculated to produce calm and thoughtful reflection in 

 the sensitive mind. Yet while this heavenly reverie 

 strikes on the human ear with such peculiar effect, the 

 humble musician himself seems but little concerned ; 

 for all the while, perhaps, that this flowing chorus enchants 

 the hearer, he is casually hopping from spray to spray 

 in quest of his active or crawling prey, and if a cessa- 

 tion occurs in his almost untiring lay, it is occasioned 

 by the caterpillar or fly he has just fortunately captured. 

 So unaffected are these delightful efforts of instinct, and 

 so unconscious is the performer, apparently, of this pleas- 

 ing faculty bestowed upon him by nature, that he may 

 truly be considered, as a messenger of harmony to man 

 alone, appointed by the fiat of Creative power. Wanton- 

 ly to destroy these delightful aids to sentimental happi- 

 ness ought therefore to be viewed, not only as an act of 

 barbarity, but almost as a sacrilege ! 



The Red-Eye, in the month of May, builds a small, neat, 

 pensile nest, suspended between the forked and depending 

 twin's of some young and slender forest tree.* It is firmly 

 attached by the whole of the 2 upper edges, and fixed at 

 a height of from 4 or 5 to 20 feet from the ground. It 

 is commenced by narrow loops of tenaceous materials 

 passed from twig to twig, which are successively increas- 



* These nests are chiefly made in the maple, beech, birch, oak, hornbeam, and tree 

 cornel,) Cornus florida, L.) 



