PHASES OF BIRD LIFE, Lyf 
for the nearest twig. Why, his wings will bear him 
up on the buoyant air! He has graduated from 
the nursery and the grammar grade into the high 
school. 
Every year has its eccentricities, so to speak; 
that is, the character of the weather and other 
modifying causes afford the faunal life an occasion 
for a development that is peculiar. Thus the 
observations made by the naturalist one year are not 
necessarily mere repetitions of those made other 
years. Nature is not often guilty of tautology. I 
yield therefore to the temptation to add a few 
chronicles made during the spring of 1893, which, 
I hope, will not destroy the unity of this article on 
bird nurseries. One day in June, while strolling 
through the woods, I heard the song of a red-eyed 
vireo. It was a kind of talking song, or recitative, 
as if the bird were discoursing on some favorite 
theme, and improvising his music as he went. His 
voice was so loud and clear that I could hear it far 
away, drifting through the green, embowered aisles 
of the woods. This vigorous chanson was a surprise, 
for I have never before known this vireo to remain 
in my neighborhood during the summer. He mostly 
hies farther north. But a still greater surprise lay 
in ambush for me a few days later, in one of my 
rambles through the woods. Suddenly there was a 
light flutter of wings near my head, and there hung 
a tiny nest on the low, swaying branches of a 
sapling. 
That it was a vireo’s nest was evident, for it was 
12 
