144 Bird Comrades 



equal the white-eyed vireo for volubility and downright 

 audacity. All his songs and he has quite a respect- 

 able list of them seem to be either a protest or a chal- 

 lenge; a protest against your intrusion into his precincts, 

 a challenge to find him and his nest if you can. Again 

 and again in Kansas I crept into their bushy coverts just 

 for the purpose of receiving a sound scolding. Such a 

 berating did they give me, telling me of all my faults and 

 foibles, that I certainly ought to remain humble all the 

 rest of my days. A half dozen viragoes could not have 

 done better that is, worse. They would flit about in 

 the bushes above my head, their little white eyes gleam- 

 ing with fire, and call me all the names they could lay 

 their tongues to. I wonder whether the white-eyes have 

 a dictionary of epithets. Nature has done an odd thing 

 in making the white-eyed vireo. 



Their nests are not easy to find, although they do not 

 always make a great deal of effort at concealment. Like 

 all the vireo tribe, they suspend their tiny baskets from 

 the fork or crotch of a horizontal twig. The nest is 

 somewhat bulkier than the compact little cup of the red- 

 eyed vireo, and is apt to be more carefully concealed in 

 the foliage, although I have found more than one nest 

 that was hung in plain sight. I remember one in par- 

 ticular. It was dangling from the outer twigs of a small 

 bush by the side of the woodland path which I was pur- 

 suing. In fact, it could be distinctly seen from the path. 

 In spite of the mother's pleadings, protests, and objurga- 

 tions, I stepped over to inspect her pendant domicile, 



