^'I'o^^'l Brk\vster, N'ofcs o?i f/ic PZ/i/ade/f/iia Virco. 37 S 



The nest was hung, after the usual Vireo fashion, in a fork 

 between two diverging, horizontal twigs. One of these, a lateral 

 branch from the upright shoot already mentioned, is rather more 

 than a quarter of an inch in diameter and evidently formed the 

 chief support, as the other twig is scarce thicker than the tiower 

 stem of a buttercup. The nest is firmly bound to both for some 

 distance along its rim. It is much longer than broad; measuring 

 externally 3.20 inches in length, 2.75 in width, and 2.65 in 

 depth; internally 2.00 in length, 1.50 in width, and 1.35 in depth. 

 Its walls are more than half an inch thick in places, its bottom 

 almost a full inch. It appears to be chiefly composed of inter 

 woven or closely compacted shreds of grayish or light brown bark, 

 apparently from various species of deciduous trees and shrubs as 

 well as, perhaps, from dried weed stalks. The exterior is beauti- 

 fully decorated with strips of the thin outer bark of the paper 

 birch, intermingled with a few cottony seed tufts of some native 

 willow still bearing the dehiscent capsules. Most of these 

 materials are firmly held in place by a gossamer-like overwrapping 

 of gray-green shreds of [/snea, but here and there a tuft of willow 

 down or a piece of curled or twisted snow-white bark was left free 

 to flutter in every passing breeze. It would be difficult to imagine 

 anything in the way of external covering for a bird's nest more 

 artistically appropriate and effective. The interior, too, is admir- 

 ably neat and pretty, for it is lined with the dry, tan-colored 

 needles of the white pine (among which are a very few slender 

 blades of grass), arranged circularly in deep layers around the 

 sides and bottom of the cup in which the eggs were laid. Most 

 of these materials are also used habitually by the Red-eye, but 

 the nest of the latter is seldom, if ever, so liberally and tastefully 

 de'corated. That of the Solitary, however, is occasionally orna- 

 mented in much the same way and to a nearly equal degree. 

 The nests of both these species, as well as those of the Warbling 

 and Yellow-throated Vireos, are almost invariably larger, rounder 

 and relatively shallower than tliis nest of the Philadelphia which, 

 indeed, most nearly resembles that of the White-eyed Vireo in 

 size and proportions, although the nest of the latter is usually 

 much deeper and more purse-shaped. 



The eggs measure respectively .80 x .54; .81 x .53 and .79 x 



