TRP^ VIREOS. 123 



and was bound to the twigs over halfway 

 round. 



What a musician the warbling vireo is ! 

 He does not sing a little run and then stop for 

 a few moments, as the sparrows do, but keeps 

 up an incessant flow of song-talk often for hours, 

 scarcely pausing long enough to take breath or 

 swallow an insect. It sounds as if the bird 

 were talking to himself in a tuneful way on 

 some theme that did not require very profound 

 thouii^ht. You have seen a musician sit down 

 before a piano and compose his music as he 

 played. Well, that seems to he what our little 

 minstrel is doing, except that he sings, and does 

 not play on an instrument. Some one has said 

 that he seems to select a text and preach 

 a sermon on it, and for that reason he is 

 sometimes called " the preacher." That is 

 (juite apt, I must confess ; but if he does 

 preach he does not give his sermon all his 

 attention, for while he discourses he flits 

 about from twig to twig, picking insects for 

 his luncheon. He is the only parson I have 

 ever heard of who can eat and preach at the 

 same time. 



There is a good deal of variety in his song. 

 Now he runs up to a very high note in the 

 scale, and now to a low one. And what does 



