12 PROCEEDINGS OP THE 



full song here, there, and everywhere, through the mountain- 

 top woods. He would break into it about every half hour, 

 sometimes about every quarter hour, and continue singing for 

 some five minutes with short intervals of silence between. Then 

 for twenty minutes, or maybe only for ten minutes, he would 

 be busy hunting, uttering, as he hunted, his usual keen song. 

 In few half hours would you total a silence of more than five 

 minutes. In the hotter hours he would be silent for longer in- 

 tervals but j'ou would hazard a good chance of hearing him at 

 any time of day if you halted for ten minutes anywhere within 

 his usual hunting-ground. His usual ticuweet, tivuweet, twiet- 

 chuweet, tu.ni, carries a good quarter of a mile, but his bridal 

 song is not of such penetrating quality. To get its every note 

 you must be within a hundred feet of the bird singing. 



The full story of his life during the three months I lived with 

 him on the top of Buck Hill I cannot write, but what I did 

 learn of it interested me deeply. When I came upon the 

 nest on June 16th, the birds had just finished it, and as I 

 visited it for a week afterwards I would generally find her in 

 the nest. This week she was laying. At its end I looked into 

 the nest for the first time and found in it four eggs, very like 

 the familiar Redeye's, with an irregular circle of fine brown and 

 black dashes and spots around the greater end, and a Cowbird's 

 egg. I took the intruder's egg and one of the Vireo's eggs, for 

 the Cowbird had indented it in dropping in her own. On blow- 

 ing them I found both fresh. I did not look into the nest again 

 until July 14th, the day after the tragedy, but I had noticed 

 the old birds feeding young a week earlier. 



The comradeship of the two during incubation had been very 

 winning. As one sat upon the eggs the other would come fly- 

 ing swiftly to a dead limb alwve and then drop to the little 

 branch from which the nest was swung, landing not a foot away 

 from it. Here the incoming bird would mew, ever so caress- 

 ingly, and the bird on the nest would answer in the same low 

 tone. Sometimes the interchange of greetings would be followed 

 by interchange of positions, the sitting bird first unsettling itself 

 gently from the eggs and then flitting off to alight beside its 

 mate. The incomer would lift itself into the nest as deftlv and 



