BLUE-HEADED VIREO. 



well as the first of May. He is one of the first birds 

 to arrive in the northern woods and the last to depart in 

 the autumn. His colors are simple but tasteful. Head, 

 top and sides, blue-gray; back olive green brighter on 

 the rump; a white eye-ring, and white between the eye 

 and the bill; two distinct white wing-bars; outer web 

 of inner secondaries white; under parts white but tinted 

 with green-yellow on the sides. Female similarly 

 colored. Nest pensile, about ten feet from the ground, 

 and placed in the Y of a slender branch; it is usually 

 built of plant fibres and pine needles. Egg white lightly 

 speckled with umber or sepia, mostly at the larger end. 

 This bird's range is throughout eastern North America. 

 It breeds on the crests of the Alleghanies, and north- 

 ward from Connecticut. It winters from Florida to 

 Central America. 



As a singer the Solitary Vireo will rank as high as, if 

 not higher than, any of his relatives. His music is not 

 remarkable for pitch, precision of intervals, or melody; 

 indeed, he is simply an expert in emphatic expression. 

 In this respect he is quite the equal of his querulous 

 cousin, the White-eye, though he certainly lacks the im- 

 pertinence of that bird. He may be classed at once 

 among those songsters who can slur over a short passage 

 with remarkable skill and leave one in complete mystery 

 as to what tones were given! To this class belong the 

 lazy Wood Pewee and the somewhat melancholy Mead- 

 owlark. But the slur of the Solitary Vireo is of an- 

 other nature; like the musical swishing of a whip-lash 

 it is fraught with emphasis! Unlike the common note 

 of the White-eye, which consists of four syllables, this 

 Vireo seems to me exclusively to sing notes of two and 

 three syllables. Also, I have noticed him do something 

 which I have never observed any other Vireo attempt; 

 that is, string together no less than three or four of his 

 two-cluster notes; here is an illustration of that point: 



i 



' \ C__ 



V V; L: 

 Np 



161 



