The Red-eyed Vireo 395 



night, stopping to rest in groves, orchards and forests as they proceed, 

 tin- Vireos journey on, some of them passing downward through western 

 Texas and Mexico to the far-away Tropics. Others 

 reach the Gulf of Mexico along the coast of 

 Louisiana, Mississippi or Western Florida, and there, 

 after a brief pause, they plunge out across the tumbling waters of 

 the sea and never sight land again for six or eight hundred miles until 

 they reach Yucatan or Central America. Through the interminable 

 jungles of South America they continue their journey until they reach 

 the regions of the Equator, many going on southward into southern Brazil. 



Here, in the great steaming forests, they remain for some months 

 until the instinct of migration again begins to beat in their veins. Then 

 our little friends turn northward, and those that have survived in due 

 time gain the boundaries of the United States. A little time passes, and 

 then one Spring morning we again hear their cries in the grove about the 

 house. Wilson Flagg once said that the words which the Red-eyed Vireo 

 sings are clearly these : "You see it you know it do you hear me ? 

 Do you believe it?" Neyer do I pause to listen to one of these birds 

 without recalling these words, for the music comes in a series of groups 

 of short, clear, questioning calls and Mr. Flagg's interpretation is perhaps 

 as accurate as any that has been suggested. 



How little we know of the courtship of birds! Dr. W. M. Tyler, of 

 Lexington, Massachusetts, writing in "Bird Lore" some time ago related 

 this remarkable experience : 



"This afternoon about six o'clock, I saw a pair of Red-eyed Vireos 

 acting in a manner new to me. They were in a small gray birch tree, 

 twelve feet from the ground, and almost over my head. The two birds 

 were very near each other; so near that their bills 

 might have touched, although they did not. The Making 



male-, or at least the bird who played the active 

 role, faced the side of the other bird, so that their bodies were at 

 right angles. The bird who, from her passive actions, I assumed, but 

 perhaps wrongly, to be the female, sat crouched low on her perch, with 

 the feathers slightly puffed out. But, although in the attitude of a sick 

 bird, she appeared in good health, I thought, and I am certain, that she 

 gave close attention to the strange actions of her companion. The bird I 

 have called the male, and I think it is safe to so consider him, was con- 

 stantly in motion. He rocked his body, especially his head, from side to 

 side, his bill sweeping over the upper parts of the other bird, never touch- 

 ing her, nor, indeed, coming very near it, for his head was above and a 

 little to one side of her back. In swinging from side to side, he moved 

 slowly, but with, a trn-riK-ss suggesting strong emotion. In contrast to 



