370 NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



and reaches New England early in May. The path of its northern migra- 

 tions, and of its return, is somewhat in doubt. It is abundant in winter, 

 according to Suraichrast, about Orizaba, and probably enters Texas and 

 passes north and east along the Mississippi and the Ohio Kivers. In certain 

 portions of the country this species is evidently on the increase, becoming 

 more and more common as the country is settled, and towns and villages 

 spring up. 



The Warbling Vireo builds its nest usually in more elevated positions than 

 any others of this family. For the most part in the vicinity of dwellings, 

 often over frequented streets, they suspend their elaborately woven and beau- 

 tiful little basket-like nest, secure from intrusion from their human neighbors, 

 and protected by the near presence of man from all their more dreaded ene- 

 mies. Audubon narrates, in an interesting manner, the building of their nest 

 by a pair of these birds on a poplar-tree, near his window, in Camden, N. J. 

 It was suspended between the body of the tree and a branch coming out at 

 an acute angle. The pair were at work, morning and evening, eight days, 

 first attaching slender blades of grass to the knots on the branch and tlie 

 bark of the trunk, and thence working downward and outward. They varied 

 their materials, from time to time, until at last he traced them, after a pro- 

 longed absence, to a distant haystack, from which they brought fine, slender, 

 dry grasses, with which they completed and lined their nest. 



The nests of the Warbling Vireo, while they resemble closely those of the 

 other species in all the characteristics of this well-marked family, are yet, as a 

 rule, more carefully, neatly, and closely built. They are usually suspended at 

 the height of from thirty to fifty feet, in the fork of twigs, under and near the 

 extremity of the tree-top, often an elm, protected from the sun and storm 

 by a canopy of leaves, and quite out of reach of most enemies. They vary 

 little in size, being about two inches in height and three and a half in their 

 greatest diameter, narrowing, toward their junction with the twigs, to two 

 inches. They are all secured in a very firm manner to the twigs from which 

 they are suspended by a felting of various materials, chiefly soft, flexible, 

 flax-like strips of vegetable fibres, leaves, stems of plants, and strips of bark. 

 With these are interwoven, and carried out around the outer portions of the 

 nest, long strips of soft flexible bark of deciduous trees. They are softly and 

 compactly filled in and lined with fine stems of plants. 



The eggs are usually five in number, and, like those of all the Vireos, are 

 of a brilliant crystal-white, sparingly spotted at the larger end with markings 

 of dark brown, and others of a lighter shade. They are less marked with 

 spots than usual in the genus, and are often entirely unspotted, and pure 

 white. Occasionally, however, they are found with well-marked blotches 

 of reddish-brown. They vary in length from .75 to .70 of an inch, and 

 average about .55 in their breadth. 



