Brewster on the PhiladelpJiia Virco. 3 



other two on May 31. Altliough no additional ones were act\ially 

 secured, several whicli were thought to be of this species were seen 

 late in June, and for the first time we began to suspect that a few 

 individuals might occasionally breed there. 



I do not know that the quiet of the Umbagog forests was again 

 disturbed by any collector until my return to the old haunt in 

 1879. On this occasion the experience of former years bade fair to 

 be repeated. Two specimens of V. pliiladelpliicus were shot on May 

 27, and the fact that they were a mated pair again aroused my sus- 

 picions ; but at that date only the earlier breeding birds were fairly 

 settled, and the country was still filled with migrants. Another 

 week saw the departure of the last of these, and the bird on 

 which the chief interest centred had apparently gone with the 

 rest. In the now leafy woods, the wild, clear notes of the Solitary, 

 and the cheerful song of the Red-eye, were apparently the only 

 Vireo voices. But at length as I was one day sitting in the shade 

 of some young poplars, a Vireo, which had been singing overhead, 

 arrested my attention by uttering a peculiar note. I listened in- 

 tently for a moment, but the strain flowed on in the old familiar 

 tones. " Only a Red-eye," I said to myself, and was once more 

 lapsing into inattention, when the note was repeated. I at once 

 rose, and began to scrutinize the singer, but in the flickering light 

 and shadow in which he moved it was difficult to get a good view 

 of him ; so, much against my inclinations, I was forced to make 

 use of my gun, and, with a shower of falling leaves, the fluttering 

 little form came to the ground at my feet. One glance was suffi- 

 cient, — it was a Philadelphia Vireo. 



It is needless to say that my delight scarcely equalled my sur- 

 prise, for the mystery had been solved, but in a way that I little 

 expected. Under the guise of an old friend, the little stranger had 

 long and successfully concealed his identity. At least this was the 

 natural inference at the moment, and it afterwards proved to be the 

 correct one. For the experience of the succeeding few days fully 

 established the fact that a certain proportion — perhaps ten per 

 cent — of the singers that had previously passed unchallenged as 

 Red-eyed Vireos were in reality of the rarer species. In fact, the 

 latter birds turned out to be not very uncommon in suitable local- 

 ities throughout the whole surrounding countr3^ Nor were they 

 confined to the water-shed of Umbagog, for I traced them as far 

 southward as Xewry, only five miles north of Bethel, and westward 



