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210 ORNITHOLOGY AND OOLOGY. 
difficult to describe or imitate, except by a whistling; in which case 
the bird may be made to approach, but seldom within sight. His 
responses on such occasions are constant and rapid, expressive of 
anger and anxiety ; and, still unseen, his voice shifts from place to 
place amidst the thicket, like the haunting of a fairy. Some of 
these notes resemble the whistling of the wings of a flying duck, 
at first loud and rapid, then sinking till they seem to end in single 
notes. A succession of other tones are now heard, some like the 
barking of young puppies, with a variety of hollow, guttural, un- 
common sounds, frequently repeated, and terminated occasionally 
by something like the mewing of a cat, but hoarser; a tone, to 
which all our Vireos, particularly the young, have frequent recur- 
rence. All these notes are uttered with vehemence, and with such 
strange and various modulations as to appear near or distant, like 
the manceuvres of ventriloquism. In mild weather also, when the 
moon shines, this gabbling, with exuberance of life and emotion, is 
heard nearly throughout the night, as if the performer were dis- 
puting with the echoes of his own voice. 
“ About the middle of May, soon after their arrival, the icterias 
begin to build, fixing the nest commonly in a bramble-bush, in an 
interlaced thicket, a vine, or small cedar, four or five feet from the 
ground. ‘The outside is usually composed of dry leaves, or thin 
strips of grape-vine bark, and with root-fibres and dry, slender 
blades of grass. The eggs are about four, pale flesh-colored, spotted 
all over with brown or dull-red. The young are hatched in the 
short period of twelve days, and leave the nest about the second 
week in June.” 
Four eggs in my collection exhibit the following dimen- 
sions: .71 by .60 inch, .70 by .60 inch, .68 by .59 inch, .67 
by .58 inch. 
The food of this bird consists of those small insects and 
spiders that are found in the thick shrubbery of brier patches, 
and on the ground among the fallen leaves. It also occa- 
sionally captures flying insects in the manner of the Vireos; 
and this fact has caused it, more than its peculiarities of 
form, to be classed by some authors with those birds. 
By the first week in September, none are seen in New 
ee New “<4 
