228 BULLETm 197, XJNITED STATES NATIONAL liIUSEUM 



Prof. Maurice Brooks writes to me : "This is a bird that has been 

 steadily enlarging its breeding range within the central Appalachian 

 region during the past 20 years. In the early days of this century, 

 these vireos were found only in the less elevated river valleys of the 

 State [West Virginia], About 1920 they appeared in fair numbers in 

 Upshur County, at elevations up to 1,800 feet. Within comparatively 

 recent years, they have become common at IMorgantown, only a few 

 miles from the Pennsylvania border, and they are to be found in a 

 few of the southwestern Pennsylvania counties. 



"The white-eye is partial to brushy country, rather than to the 

 larger forests, conditions which have followed the death of the 

 American chestnuts from bark disease have favored the spread of the 

 birds. A typical region in which the birds are abundant will have 

 a fringe of standing dead chestnut trees, surrounded by numerous 

 chestnut sprouts, and covered with grape vines, Virginia creeper, and 

 other climbers. Here the birds seem completely at home. Farther 

 to the south they reach elevations well above 2,000 feet, and nest in 

 rhododendron and American holly thickets." 



Farther south and west its haunts seem to be of the same general 

 character, where it may sometimes be found in such places as one 

 would look for the other low-nesting vireos, the black-capped or 

 Bell's, or with such birds as catbirds, brown thrashers, chats, and 

 certain wrens. 



Courtship. — The only note I can find on this subject is the following 

 bj' Bradford Torrey (1885) : "Pretty soon a pair of the birds appeared 

 near me, the male protesting his affection at a frantic rate, and the 

 female repelling his advances with a snappish determination which 

 might have driven a timid suitor desperate. He posed before her, 

 puffing out his feathers, spreading his tail, and crying hysterically, 

 y^Pi y^Vi yaoih., — the last note a downright whine or snarl, worthy of 

 the catbird. Poor soul ! he was well-nigh beside himself, and could 

 not take no for an answer, even when the word was emphasized with 

 an ugly dab of the beloved's beak. The pair shortly disappeared in the 

 swamp." 



Nesting — The only nest of the white-eyed vireo that I ever succeeded 

 in finding in my home territory was unexpectedly discovered in Ee- 

 hoboth, Mass., on June G, 1908, in what was, to me, an unlikely locality 

 for this vireo, which we had always found singing in low, damp thick- 

 ets. The locality was an old abandoned cemetery on high, dry land 

 near a village; arborvitae trees had been planted in regular rows and 

 had grown up to considerable size, 20 to 25 feet in height; after many 

 years of neglect the spaces between the trees had been largely over- 

 grown with small wild cherry trees, other saplings, and thickets of 

 blackberries and other underbrush. While hunting through this area, 

 where broAvn thrashers, catbirds, and purple flinches were nesting, we 



