374 



NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Canadian zone and presumably of the colder portions of the Alleghanian 

 area, but I have no evidence of its nesting in this area except the record 

 of Bicknell and others in the Catskill district, and of Fuertes at Ithaca 

 in 1893 and of Allen at Ithaca in 1913. My own experience throughout 

 the hills, gullies and swamps of western New York is that this species 

 is absent as a breeding species from the whole region, even where j uncos, 

 Hermit thrushes and Blackburnian warblers are fairly common breeders, 

 and does not occur in any numbers until the Canadian zone is reached 

 at the edge of the Adirondacks. I found it nesting in Essex county 

 about the Ausable lakes and on the slopes of the Bartlett ridge up to 

 an elevation of 2500 and 3000 feet. The nests were mostly attached to 

 the small forks and horizontal limbs of beech and birch trees only a few 

 feet from the ground and had young in the nest on the 3Oth of June to 

 the loth of July, of a size which would indicate that the fresh eggs would 

 be found about the loth of June. The eggs are 3 or 4 in number, white 

 like those of all the other vireos, slightly spotted with black, umber and 

 reddish brown thickest near the larger end. They average .80 by .53 

 inches in dimensions. In nearly all portions of the State this vireo is 

 a fairly common transient visitant, arriving from the 2Oth to the 3Oth 

 of April, sometimes as late as the 8th of May in the colder counties. 

 Throughout the warmer districts it passes on to the northward from the 

 1 4th to the 24th of May. It returns again about the 8th to the i6th of 

 September and leaves us for the south from the loth to the 25th of October. 

 On Long Island and in some other localities of southeastern New York this 

 species is much less common as a migrant than it is in the western counties, 

 but the dates agree very closely with those from central New York. 



The song of the Solitary vireo to my ear is a more melodious perform- 

 ance than that of the Red-eyed and Yellow-throated species. Bicknell 

 describes it as a " prolonged, interrupted warble followed by loud notes, 

 matchless for tenderness and cadence." The song is rarely heard during 

 the migration season, but in the nesting haunts it is frequently delivered 

 in the morning and late in the afternoon. 



