3l6 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 



suffered severely from cold and starvation at the South, in the winter of 1894- 

 1895, and since then it has not revisited eastern Massachusetts in anything like 

 its former numbers. 



On June 26, 1875, I took a nest of the Solitary Vireo, containing four 

 fresh eggs,' in an extensive tract of woodland north of the Lyman estate in 

 Waltham. Another nest with eggs was found by Mr. Walter Faxon on June 

 12, 1895, near Arlington Heights, where I, also, have occasionally met with 

 birds that were evidently breeding. 



The only instances known to me of the occurrence of the Solitary Vireo 

 within the more densely populated portions of Cambridge happened in 1903 and 

 1904. On April 28 of the former year a male appeared in our garden. 

 Greatly to my surprise he spent the remainder of that spring and part of the 

 following summer there, being noted last on July 31. His daily range 

 extended through several of the adjoining estates, including Hubbard Park, 

 but he seldom wandered to greater distances from the spot where he was 

 first seen. He was a peculiarly interesting bird because of the fact that he 

 had two songs, one perfectly characteristic of his own species, the other indis- 

 tinguishable from that of the Yellow-throated Vireo. These songs were invari- 

 ably kept distinct, the notes of one never being interpolated among those of the 

 other ; nor was the bird ever known to change from one to the other save after 

 a well-marked interval of total silence. Although he was not seen that season 

 in company with any other bird of either his ovvn or any closely allied species, 

 it is probable that he had a mate, or at least a nest, for one day late in June my 

 assistant, Mr. Gilbert, found him engaged in tearing strips of loose bark from a 

 birch tree in our garden, whence he took them across the street into a neighbor- 

 ing enclosure. 



In 1904 a Solitary Vireo was observed in our garden on June 6; July 7, 19, 

 and 22 ; and August 3 and 12. That the bird seen on these dates was the same 

 as the one noted in 1903, admits of no doubt, for he again made frequent use of the 

 characteristic song of the Yellow-throated Vireo as well as of that of his own 

 species. During this second summer Mr. Walter Deane found him on one 

 occasion near the head of Sparks Street in company with a Yellow-throated 

 Vireo with which he was apparently mated. I am inclined to believe — 

 although in support of such an assumption I can give no evidence additional to 

 that already mentioned — that during both seasons he paired with a female 

 Vireo flavifrons. If any young were reared, they escaped our notice. 



' These eggs, with the nest, no. 775, are still in my collection. 



