YELLOW-THROATED VIREO 277 



now, alas, it is only a happy memory; I have not seen one here for 

 many years. It has {probably gone from many another of its former 

 habitats. I have always suspected that its disappearance was largely 

 due to the extensive spraying of our shade and orchard trees. The 

 red-eyed vireo, also, seems to have been driven away from our home 

 grounds and the shade trees along our streets, probably for the same 

 reason, but it is still common enough in our deciduous woodlands. 

 The yellow-throated vireo, in my experience, has never been as much 

 of a woodland bird as the redeye and far less so than the closely re- 

 lated blue-headed vireo. Dr. Brewer (Baird, Brewer, and Ridgway, 

 1874) expresses it very well as follows : "All the older ornithological 

 writers, in speaking of the Yellow-throated Vireo, repeat each other 

 in describing it as jjeculiarly attracted to the forest, seeking its soli- 

 tudes and gleaning its food chiefly among its topmost branches. 

 Such has not been my experience with this interesting and attractive 

 little songster. I have found no one of this genus, not even the gilva, 

 so common in the vicinity of dwellings, or more familiar and fearless 

 in its intercourse with man." 



It is only fair to say, however, that Dr. Brewer's observations were 

 evidently made near Boston, Mass., where its haunts were much as they 

 used to be here. In other portions of its range, and to some extent 

 in the east, it may be found on the edges of woodlands, in groves and 

 in open stands of oaks, maples, and other hardwood trees, but seldom 

 in the dense forests. Dr. Dayton Stoner (1932), referring to the 

 Oneida Lake region in New York, writes : "It seems to be more widely 

 dispersed in early spring than later when its local distribution becomes 

 more restricted, being then confined largely to orchards and groves, 

 the vicinity of cottages and summer camps, tall roadside trees and 

 those in the villages about the lake. I have been particularly im- 

 pressed by the numbers of yellow-throated vireos about the villages of 

 Bridgeport and Cleveland during the summer. Wooded tracts com- 

 posed largely or solely of tall maples, wild black cherry and other 

 hardwoods * * * also appeal to this vireo." 



Probably in such localities the yellow-throated vireo would be likely 

 to survive longer than in the much-sprayed roadside trees and orchards 

 of Massachusetts. 



Nesting. — The yellow-throated vireo builds the handsomest nest of 

 any of the vireos, even prettier than the best examples of the nests 

 of the blue-headed vireo, and fully as well decorated as the nests of 

 the hummingbird, wood pewee, and blue-gray gnatcatcher, though 

 differing from all these in shape and suspended from the prongs of 

 a forked twig. The general construction of the nest is similar to 

 that of other vireos, but it is very well made and firmly attached to 

 the supporting twigs. In one before me the supporting twigs are 

 entirely concealed by the masses of cobwebs and other material that 



