134 Sketches of Some Common Birds. 



tarily as it darts out in flycatcher-like manner, turns 

 hurriedly in air, and darts back into the cover. When 

 taken off its guard, it may sometimes be seen to perch for 

 a few moments on a low stem or fence, just without the 

 border of its bushy domains, uttering its hurried, confused 

 ditty, before it turns again into the tangle. The chief 

 evidence of its existence is the short, emphatic, vireo-like 

 notes coming from the bushes — a warble shorter than the 

 song of any of the other vireos, uttered nervously, with 

 increasing force and pitch to the end. 



The performer himself is shy, and avoids listeners. At 

 first he is heard ahead of us, and we see him flit out from 

 the foliage, quickly turn and dart among the leaves again, 

 uttering a low, forcible "quit" as he sports with his 

 spouse and chases her through the shrubbery. We gently 

 press forward, eager to identify and observe the restless 

 creature; but now he is singing behind us in the tangle, 

 and only occasionally do we obtain a glimpse of him as he 

 flits among the stems of the bushes. Determined to see 

 more of the movements of the elfin bushman, we press 

 aside the stems and creep into the covert, where brambles 

 irritate all the salient features of our crouching form. 

 Soon we hear the restless little creature singing even above 

 our head. At first he says, " Quit, oh, quit, now quit, why 

 can't you hear?" in a hurried, confused, and nervous 

 manner, not unlike the latter part of the song of the 

 prairie horned lark. Then, perhaps, he soliloquizes softly, 

 in a subdued, far-away tone, scarcely audible to our at- 

 tentive ears, like the warbling vireo when it knows itself 

 to be observed. Thus the rose-breasted grosbeak will 

 frequently sing when under observation, and thus the 

 brown thrasher croons its sweet melodies toward the close 

 of the nesting season. Thus sings the little vireo whose 

 habits we are briefly sketching, ever flirting its tail in 

 nervous flycatcher style when alighted for a few moments, 

 passing to and fro in its restricted range as it is impelled 

 by its unresting spirit; and thus we learn to know and 

 love the shy, modest denizen of the lowly bushes. 



Along the edge of the woods north of my former home 

 there was a thicket of wild plum trees bordering a shal- 

 low rivulet which flowed into a creek about eighty rods 



