72 Birds Every Child Should Know 



carried one of the young birds all around the 

 garden on a rake handle. 



Vireos are remarkably fine builders — among 

 the very best. Although their nests are not so 

 deep as the Baltimore orioles', the shape and 

 weave are similar. The red-eye usually prefers 

 to swing her cradle from a small crotch in an 

 oak or apple tree or sapling, and securely lace 

 it through the rim on to the forked twigs. Nests 

 vary in appearance, but you will notice that these 

 weavers show a preference for dried grass as a 

 foundation into which are wrought bits of bark, 

 lichen, wasps' nest "paper," spider web, plant 

 down, and curly vine tendrils. 



THE WHITE-EYED VIREO 



It is not often that you can get close enough 

 to any bird to see the white of his eyes, but the 

 brighter olive green of this vivacious little 

 white-eyed vireo's upper parts, his white breast, 

 faintly washed with yellow on the sides, and the 

 two yellowish white bars on his wings help you 

 to recognise him at a distance. Imagine my 

 surprise to meet him in Bermuda, over six 

 hundred miles out at sea from the Carolina 

 coast, where he, too, was taking a winter va- 

 cation! In those beautiful islands, where our 

 familiar catbirds and cardinals also abound, 



