THE RED-EYED VIREO. 350 
of Cambridge, Mass., at the Little Dalles, in this State’. Mr. Lyman Belding, 
the veteran ornithologist, of Stockton, Cal., advises me, however, that this 
Vireo was first seen by his friend, Dr. J. W. Williams, of Walla Walla, on 
June 4 and 24, 1885, and that six specimens were taken. Dr. Merrill, writing 
in 1&97°, records them as abundant summer visitors at Fort Sherman, Idaho; 
and Fannin notes their occurrence upon Vancouver Island. Messrs. C. W. and 
J. H. Bowles met with this species in the Puyallup Valley on June 23, 1899, 
when they saw and heard at least half a dozen. Mr. Bowles and I were con- 
stantly on the lookout for this bird during our East-side trip in May and June, 
1906, but we failed to observe it in either Spokane or Stevens Counties. We 
found it first in a wooded spur of the Grand Coulee on June 13th; then com- 
monly at Chelan, where it nested; and also at the head of Lake Chelan with 
Cassin Vireos right alongside. And now comes the announcement of its 
breeding at Kirkland where Miss Jennie V. Getty took two sets in the season 
of 1908. 
The truth is, the Cassin Vireo has so long occupied the center of the 
stage here in the Northwest, that we may never know whether his cousin, Red- 
eye, stole a march on us from over the Rockies, or was here for a century 
grieving at our dullness of perception. In habit the two species are not unlike, 
and their ordinary notes do not advertise differences, even to the mildly ob- 
servant. ‘Those of the Red-eye are, however, higher in pitch, less mellow and 
soft in quality, and are rendered with more sprightliness of manner. Its solil- 
oquizing notes are often uttered—always in single phrases of from two to four 
syllables each—while the bird is busily hunting, and serve to mark an overflow 
of good spirits rather than a studied attempt at song. His best efforts are 
given to the entertaining of his gentle spouse when she is brooding upon the 
nest. A bird to which I once listened at midday, in Ohio, had chosen for his 
station the topmost bare twig of a beech tree a hundred feet from the ground, 
and from this elevated position he poured out his soul at the rate of some fifty 
phrases per minute, and without intermission during the half hour he was 
under observation. 
So thoroly possessed does our little hero become with the spirit of poesy, 
that when he takes a turn upon the nest he indulges, all unmindful of the dan- 
ger, in frequent outbursts of song. Both birds are closely attached to the home, 
about which center their fears and their hopes; and well they may be, for it is 
a beautiful structure in itself. The nest is a semipensile cup, bound firmly by 
its edges to a small fork near the end of some horizontal branch of tree or bush, 
and usually at a height not exceeding five or ten feet. It is composed largely of 
fibers from weed-stalks, and fine strips of cedar or clematis bark, which also 
forms what little lining there is. A curious characteristic of the entire Vireo 
a. The Auk, Vol. IX., Oct., 1892, p. 396. 
b. The Auk, Vol. XV., Jan., 1898, p. 18. 
