Bells Vireo. 137 



Dpest. The lining is of fine dried grass, with here and 

 there a circular flake of gossamer. The cavity is smoothly 

 and firmly finished, averaging an inch and five-eighths in 

 diameter by one and one-half in depth. Four eggs form 

 the usual complement, though late complements often 

 contain only three eggs. They are snowy white, spotted 

 irregularly with blackish brown, the spots commonly pre- 

 ponderating around the larger end. They average nearly 

 .70 of an inch in length by .50 in width. 



It was' in the summer of 1894 that my observations of 

 the habits of this vireo were chiefly made, and since that 

 time I have been unable to continue the acquaintance 

 then so agreeable to me. Only lately, however, in an 

 afternoon ramble over a gentle southern slope on which a 

 clearing had been made, and where later a thick growth 

 of shoots and bushes had appeared — where the yellow- 

 breasted chat whistles and cackles and skulks, where the 

 indigo bunting utters its persistent chant, and the field 

 sparrow adds its sweet ditty to the afternoon chorus — 

 there I again heard the gentle sputtering of my little 

 friend of other days, and as before I followed him into the 

 tangle. Among the bushy growth a small ravine breaks 

 its way to the larger stream, and overhanging the dry bed 

 of the ravine are clustering vines drooping into brambles 

 below. Creeping under the vines and among the bram- 

 bles, I again saw this interesting little vireo; as I watched 

 his restless movements, his rapid flitting among the stems, 

 his ardent pursuit of his lady love, his warbler-like man- 

 ner of taking insect prey on the wing from the outward 

 leaves, I felt that the renewal of old friendship had amply 

 compensated me for my walk of six miles. 



Like other birds which reach us later in the sj^ring, 

 Bell's vireo leaves us early in the summer, disappearing 

 from its haunts about the first of August, at about the 

 same time that Dickcissel ceases his rural monologues, 

 when Traill's flycatcher forsakes its thorny perches in 

 the hedgerows and is seen no more, and when our resi- 

 dent Baltimore orioles depart to escape the further heat 

 and drought of summer. The vireo probably goes as far 

 south in winter as Central America. Its summer home is 

 the region west of the Wabash Kiver to the Eocky Moun- 

 tains, ranging north to Lake Superior. 



