MINOR SONGSTERS. 167 
sweet; the more so for coming almost always 
out of a pine-tree. 
The vireos, or greenlets, are akin to the war- 
blers in appearance and habits, and like them 
are peculiar to the western continent. We have 
no birds that are more unsparing of their mu- 
sic (prodigality is one of the American vir- 
tues, we are told): they sing from morning till 
night, and — some of them, at least — continue 
thus till the very end of the season. It is 
worth mentioning, however, that the red-eye 
makes a short day ; becoming silent just at the 
time when the generality of birds grow most 
noisy. Probably the same is true of the rest 
of the family, but on that point I am not pre- 
pared to speak with positiveness. Of the five 
New England species (I omit the brotherly-love 
greenlet, never having been fortunate enough 
to know him) the white-eye is decidedly the 
most ambitious, the warbling and the solitary 
are the most pleasing, while the red-eye and 
the yellow-throat are very much alike, and both 
of them rather too monotonous and persistent. 
It is hard, sometimes, not to get out of patience 
with the red-eye’s ceaseless and noisy iteration 
of his trite theme ; especially if you are doing 
your utmost to catch the notes of some rarer 
and more refined songster. In my note-book I 
find an entry describing my vain attempts to 
