342 BULLETIN 19 7, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



eggs. Then I selected a dead weed stalk about five feet long and Impaled an 

 ant's egg on the sharp end of it. With this I very quietly approached the nest 

 and held out my offering at arm's length, until the white morsel was within 

 I'each of the vireo. At first she looked alarmed, then astonished, and a moment 

 later rather bored, for she turned her head away and refused to look at the 

 proffered food. But I waited patiently, holding the tip of the weed stalk within 

 easy reach. At last she turned her head as if the temptation to do so could no 

 longer be resisted. She now showed keen interest in the proceedings, took a 

 sharp look at the white delicacy at the end of the stalk and then as much as 



to say, "Hello; that is an ant's egg, isn't it?" stretched out her neck and took it, 



* * * 



A moment later she confirmed her own opinion by taking another ant's egg in 

 the same way, after which I quietly withdrew, leaving her to digest both her 

 food and her strange experience. 



Next day I returned and after she had promptly accepted a few more ants' eggs 

 from the end of the week-stalk, I stepped up a little closer and offered one be- 

 tween my thumb and forefinger. After a little hesitation she took it, and from 

 that moment we were on friendship's footing. She seemed much interested, if not 

 actually pleased, whenever I approached ; she would sometimes stretch far out 

 over the rim of the nest in order to make quick connections with the food I 

 brought her, and did not mind in the least if I stroked her on the head or back 

 with my finger. At first she was a little nervous when I stroked her throat, 

 and when I persisted she slipped off the nest. But as she got used to me she 

 minded less and less and would even allow me to lift her off her eggs and put her 

 gently back. * * * 



Many people were introduced * * ♦ and children especially experienced 

 ecstatic joy at the privilege of feeding and stroking a vrild bird in her own home. 



Several times in the course of the past 30 years or so, I have seen 

 a red-eyed vireo acting in a very odd manner. It has occurred when 

 an adult is feeding a full-grown young. The old bird suddenly de- 

 parts, for a moment, from its normal behavior ; it draws its feathers 

 tight to its body and sways slowly from side to side through a wide 

 arc, certainly as great as 90°. If the two birds are facing each other, 

 as they usually are, the bill of the adult points successively far to each 

 aide of the young bird, over and over. The old bird gives the impres- 

 sion of being in a sort of trance, or as if it were trying to influence the 

 other bird in some strange way, although the action probably has a 

 more prosaic explanation. Behavior of a similar nature is described 

 under "Courtship." I have never seen any other species of vireo act 

 in this manner. 



Arthur B. Williams (1940) describes a very unusual observation: 



On July 16, 1934, the writer, while engaged in making a survey of the bird 

 population of a tract of beech and sugar-maple forest near Cleveland, Ohio, no- 

 ticed a Red-eyed Vireo {Vir-eo olivaceus) plunging into a shallow pool of water 

 at the edge of a woodland brook. This unusual behavior was repeated several 

 times. The bird would work down a small branch overhanging the pool until 

 it was about eight inches above the water. Here attention was fixed at a certain 

 spot in the water below, and shortly the bird would dive in head first as a 

 kingfisher does. It would then fly to a perch in a tree about twenty-five feet 

 away and eat something apparently captured from the water. Once the bird 



