234 Birds of Buzzard's Roost 



The red-eyed vireo is regarded as the best type of its fam- 

 ily. Its color is indicated by its scientific name, for the word 

 "vireo" means green and the word "olivaceus" an olive-green. 

 In appearance the sexes are alike. The bill is short, strong and 

 nearly straight, notched and hooked at the tip, greenish above 

 and yellowish below; crown of head ashy, bordered on each 

 side by a dusky line with a white strip below it, and over 

 the eye; iris of the eye red, and it is this that gives to it its 

 distinguishing name ; upper parts of the body and tail are 

 of a bright olive green ; below nearly pure white, the under- 

 tail coverts having a sulphur tinge ; toes moderate in size, the 

 lateral ones partly united to the middle at the base, and this 

 enables it to hold its insect food much as a shrike does. 



It is a migrant whose range extends from Columbia and 

 Trinidad north throughout eastern North America to Lab- 

 rador, the Mackenzie Valley and British Columbia. Cooke in 

 his Migration of Birds, says : "The red-eyed vireo, the com- 

 monest and most known of the tuneful family, winters in Cen- 

 tral America, from Guatemala. The advent of the species in 

 spring at the mouth of the Mississippi and its even-paced pas- 

 sage at twenty miles per day for six weeks to the head of the 

 waters of the river are well attested by numerous records. But 

 just about the time northern Nebraska is reached, and before 

 they have appeared in any intervening country, red-eyed vi- 

 reos are noted in British Columbia, one thousand miles to the 

 northwest. Is the presence of the red-eyed vireo in British 

 Columbia to be explained by the theory that it suddenly flies 

 one thousand miles in a single night?" They come north the 

 last half of April and return south the first of October. 

 They breed from the Gulf States north throughout their north- 

 ern range. 



They mate after they come north and late in May or by 

 the first of June their nests may be found. The nest is a beau- 

 tiful piece of bird structure. In my collection of nests I have 

 one which I obtained at Buzzard's Roost January 1, 1905. It 

 is pensile and cup-shaped in form and laced to the forked 

 limbs of a bush. The outside of it has woven into it a white 

 material which I think has been taken from a spider's web or 

 hornet's nest. It is surprising how neatly and substantially it 



