21 



the song of this tireless musician can be heard in the nesting 

 season. Frequenting the treetops with other avian neighbors, 

 it frequently falls a victim when the collector is hoping to 

 obtain a more valuable specimen. In general, it haunts a 

 somewhat higher level of the woods than does the warbling 

 vireo, as its nesting sites average farther from the ground; 

 and it does not manifest the same degree of confidence in 

 human associations as is noticeable in the manners of its 

 congener last described. On the day of our arrival at the 

 Station, the red-eyed vireo was one of the commonest 

 and noisiest (noticeable in song) birds of the woods, heard 

 everywhere at all times during the day. Owing to the fact 

 that this vireo generally chooses a higher site for its nest than 

 the warbling vireo, not so many notes were made regarding 

 its nidification. 



On June 16, an apparently abandoned nest of the red-eyed 

 vireo was found in the swampy woods at the right of the 

 mouth of Swan River. It was pendent in a fork of an oblique 

 willow stem, twelve feet from the ground, and contained four 

 fresh eggs, one of which was partially destroyed, as it had a 

 large hole pecked or gnawed in its side. The damage may 

 have been done by a squirrel or chipmunk, the latter being 

 a very active agent in the destruction of eggs of native birds. 



On the afternoon of the same day, June 16, a nest of the red- 

 eyed vireo was taken in the low thicket immediately west of 

 the laboratory'. This nest was nine feet from the gTound, in 

 a drooping fork of a haw tree. The complement was five fresh 

 eggs. Like the structure of the warbling vireo described in 

 the preceding notes, this product of the red-eyed vireo is finished 

 exteriorly with bits of gossamer, birch bark, and flakes of wasp 

 paper. It is attached less securely to the fork, and the walls 

 are somewhat thinner. The materials are much the same, 

 though those used by the red-eyed vireo are darker and less at- 

 tractive. In interior measurements the nests are about the 

 same size. The eggs of these vireos are quite similar, having; 

 a clear white ground, with specks of blackish brown irregularly 

 and sparsely scattered over the surface, frequently more numer- 

 ous at the larger end. The eggs of the red-eyed vireo average 

 slightly larger than those of the warbling vireo. 



In Plate XL a nest with a full complement of eggs is shown. 

 Compare with Plate XII. 



