274 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



A RED-EYED VIREO 

 This bird is repairing its nest during incubation. The vireos* nests are built of 

 strips of bark and plant fibers skilfully woven together and bound into place 

 by means of spider-webs and the webs of tent caterpillars. Here the bird is 

 repairing its nest that has become loosened by swaying in the wind. 



than to her own, in fact, she seems quite proud of her 

 prodigy offspring and continues to answer its cries for food 

 long after the cowbird is larger than its foster parent and 

 should be caring for itself. The accompanying photo- 

 graph of a blue-headed vireo's nest shows how the first 

 cowbird 's egg was buried in the bottom of the nest by the 



addition of a second floor. Later, after the vireo had 

 deposited two eggs of her own, two more of the cowbird 's 

 eggs appeared. These I removed, but, nevertheless, when 

 I returned about three weeks later, hoping to study a family 

 of vireos, one young cowbird was all the vireos had to 

 show for their labors . Still another cowbird 's egg had been 

 deposited in the interim and the ugly intruder here pic- 

 tured had crowded the rightful young from the nest. 



All of the vireos are trustful birds, seeming to have little 

 fearof man. They sometimes nest on branches close to win- 

 dows and often allow one to stroke them when on the nest. 



The three commonest vireos are the warbling, red- 

 eyed, and yellow-throated species. The first two resemble 

 each other closely, being greenish above and pure white 

 below. The red-eyed, however, has a grayer crown and a 

 black line through its eye. The warbling vireo usually 

 keeps to the tree tops, where its loud warbling song can be 

 heard even in the heart of big cities, though the bird itself 



A YELLOW-THROATED VIREO 

 This bird is stepping onto its nest in the fork of a chestnut tree about twenty 

 feet from the ground. The yellow-throated vireo is a common bird of the shade 

 trees, even along city streets, where its musical notes are heard much more often 

 than the bird is seen. It hangs its cuplike nest in the fork of a small branch 

 prouting from one of the main limbs usually toward the center of the tree. 



Photo by C. C. Embody. 



A WHITE-EYED VIREO AT ITS NEST 

 This vireo is an aberrant member of the family, nesting in thickets and berry 



bushes. 



is seldom seen. There, likewise, it hangs its cuplike nest. 

 The red-eyed vireo is more at home among the lower 

 branches or even in the undergrowth of woodlands, al- 

 though it, too, makes the best of city parks, where it has 

 to consort with the warbling vireo on account of the lack 

 of undergrowth. The yellow-throated vireo is easily dis- 

 tinguished from these two by its yellow throat and breast, 

 resembling more some of the warblers. The blue-headed 

 vireo and the less common Philadelphia vireo are more 

 northern in their breeding range than the others, and pre- 

 fer woodlands for their homes. The blue-headed species is 

 quite distinct from any of the others with its bluish-gray 

 head and white eye-ring, but the Philadelphia closely 

 resembles the common red-eyed, even in its song. Its 

 under parts, however, are lightly suffused with greenish- 

 yellow, and its song is somewhat weaker and higher pitched. 

 The eastern and southern white-eyed vireo and the Bell's 

 vireo of the Middle West are aberrant members of the 



