RED-EYED VIREO 343 



was nearly submerged and had to stop to shake the water off its plumage before 

 eating the morsel. 



Voice. — The red-eyed vireo is preeminently famous as a singer. No 

 other of our birds sings so persistently all day long, and because his 

 long-continued series of utterances, given in short, emphatic phrases, 

 going on for hours, calls to mind a lengthy sermon, he has won the title 

 "Preacher." Of this epithet Bradford Torrey ( 1889) , with sly humor, 

 expresses this opinion : "The red-eye's eloquence was never very per- 

 suasive to my ear. Its short sentences, its tiresome upward inflections, 

 its everlasting repetitiousness, and its sharp, querulous tone long since 

 became to me an old story ; and I have always thought that whoever 

 dubbed this vireo the 'preacher' could have had no very exalted opinion 

 of the clergy." 



Nevertheless the preacher sings a cheerful song, and when we study 

 it we find it has its good points as well as its shortcomings. It is tire- 

 some chiefly because most of the phrases end with a rising inflection, 

 giving the impression of a long series of interrogations, the voice 

 seldom coming to rest as before a period. Wilson Flagg (1890) brings 

 out this point very well when he says : "We might suppose him to be 

 repeating moderately, with a pause between each sentence, 'You see 

 it, — you laiow it, — do you hear me? — do you believe it?' All these 

 strains are delivered with a rising inflection at the close, and with a 

 pause, as if waiting for an answer." 



Some characteristic phrases, which I have jotted down while listen- 

 ing to a singing bird, may be written, cherry -o-ioit, cheree, sissy-a-wii, 

 tee-oo, and many others. At times during the day, and invariably at 

 early dawn, when the bird is not feeding, it sings with almost perfect 

 regularity, the phrases following each other at a rate of from 60 to 

 80 per minute, and rarely a bird will sing for a considerable period 

 with little variation in his phrases. 



There is commonly much variety in the song. A. A. Saunders (MS.) 

 says that the number of different phrases used by an individual bird 

 may be as many as 40, altlix)ugh about 25 is a more usual repertoire. 

 "The pitch of the song," he says, "varies from D ' ' ' ' to E flat " ', 

 half a tone less than an octave. The quality is clear, but rather color- 

 less, as compared to the other species of vireos. The phrases are com- 

 posed of two to five notes each, five-note phrases being rather rare. 

 The notes of the phrases are generally joined abruptly and only rarely 

 slurred together. This gives the song a choppy effect, and with the 

 colorless quality gives the effect of talking rather than singing — 

 talking in short, quick, exclamatory or interrogatory sentences." 



Several observers have noticed that the bird occasionally introduces 

 a phrase resembling a note of the crested flycatcher, and Francis H. 

 Allen (MS.) says: "I have heard it imitate the olive-sided flycatcher 

 and the bluebird." 



