BLUE-HEADED VIREO. 
well as the first of May. He is one of the first birds 
to arrive in the northern woods and the last to depart in 
the autumn. His colors are simple but tasteful. Head, 
top and sides, blue-gray; back olive green brighter on 
the rump; a white eye-ring, and white between the eye 
and the bill; two distinct white wing-bars; outer web 
of inner secondaries white; under parts white but tinted 
with green-yellow on the sides. Female similarly 
colored. Nest pensile, about ten feet from the ground, 
and placed in the Y of a slender branch; it is usually 
built of plant fibres and pine needles. Egg white lightly 
speckled with umber or sepia, mostly at the larger end. 
This bird’s range is throughout eastern North America. 
It breeds on the crests of the Alleghanies, and north- 
ward from Connecticut. It winters from Florida to 
Central America. 
As a singer the Solitary Vireo will rank as high as, if 
not higher than, any of his relatives. His music is not 
remarkable for pitch, precision of intervals, or melody; 
indeed, he is simply an expert in emphatic expression. 
In this respect he is quite the equal of his querulous 
cousin, the White-eye, though he certainly lacks the im- 
pertinence of that bird. He may be classed at once 
among those songsters who can slur over a short passage 
with remarkable skill and leave one in complete mystery 
as to what tones were given! To this class belong the 
lazy Wood Pewee and the somewhat melancholy Mead- 
owlark. But the slur of the Solitary Vireo is of an- 
other nature; like the musical swishing of a whip-lash 
it is fraught with emphasis! Unlike the common note 
of the White-eye, which consists of four syllables, this 
Vireo seems to me exclusively to sing notes of two and 
three syllables. Also, I have noticed him do something 
which I have never observed any other Vireo attempt; 
that is, string together no less than three or four of his 
two-cluster notes; here is an illustration of that point: 
(Notes all slurs) 
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