268 DwiGHT, The Philadelphia Vireo. \^^^ 



Besides the song, this Vireo has the scolding note already 

 mentioned. It does not resemble the corresponding complaint 

 note of olivaceus, but is almost exactly like the aggressive nasal 

 mya of gihms, which has a suggestion of the katydid about it. It 

 is usually rapidly repeated five or six times or intermitted and 

 continued irregularly by series of from three to eight or more. 

 Males and females both make use of it, raising the feathers of the 

 crown into a crest at the same time so as to look quite angry. 

 This is the first sound imitated by the young birds, though usually 

 rendered by them one note at a time and in a rather ' scrapey ' 

 voice, while the approach of the food-laden parent will excite a 

 chatter, marked chiefly by its incoherent rapidity. 



The other regular notes of the adults are the indescribable soft 

 clickings and squeakings of which I have already spoken, a mine 

 of low music intended as household gossip when the loud song is 

 laid aside. These, as well as the scolding notes, are also inter- 

 spersed in the intervals of the soliloquized song in which the 

 male indulges when roving at will. 



It is evident that but one brood is raised in a season. I have 

 seen young birds as early as July 7, comical little chaps largely 

 bare skin and the promise of a tail. At this tender age they are 

 unwilling to essay flight except when urged by anxious parents 

 to make a clumsy, flying leap from one twig to another, but they 

 are knowing enough to keep quiet when they hear a crashing in 

 the bushes, and as they become older they lose no time in moving 

 quickly away. I have found them in alder thickets or along 

 some of the bushy cattle paths which end abruptly at steep walls 

 of rock or lose themselves in small clearings. In fact I never 

 could tell when or where I might run across the birds, young or 

 old, but during the latter part of July, when the moult is in 

 progress, it is almost impossible to find them anywhere. I asso- 

 ciate them, however, with the alder patches where they wander 

 loudly singing in early summer, softly warbling in midsummer, 

 and becoming silent long before the chill of autumn has come. It 

 could be said that the Philadelphia Vireo might well emulate his 

 indefatigable relation, the Red-eye, whose song period extends day 

 in and day out well into the fall, but our little friend undoubtedly 

 knows well what he is about or he would not have successfully 



