168 MINOR SONGSTERS. 



enjoy the music of a rose-breasted grosbeak, 

 who at that time had never been a common 

 bird with me, while " a pesky Wagnerian 

 red-eye kept up an incessant racket." 



The warbling vireo is admirably named; 

 there is no one of our birds that can more prop- 

 erly be said to warble. He keeps further from 

 the ground than the others, and shows a strong 

 preference for the elms of village streets, out of 

 which his delicious music drops upon the ears 

 of all passers underneath. How many of them 

 hear it and thank the singer is unhappily an- 

 other question. 



The solitary vireo may once in a while be 

 heard in a roadside tree, chanting as familiarly 

 as any red-eye ; but he is much less abundant 

 than the latter, and, as a rule, more retiring. 

 His ordinary song is like the red-eye's and the 

 yellow-throat's, except that it is pitched some- 

 what higher and has a peculiar inflection or ca- 

 dence, which on sufficient acquaintance becomes 

 quite unmistakable. This, however, is only the 

 smallest part of his musical gift. One morning 

 in May, while strolling through a piece of thick 

 woods, I came upon a bird of this species, who, 

 all alone like myself, was hopping from one low 

 branch to another, and every now and then 

 breaking out into a kind of soliloquizing song, 

 a musical chatter, shifting suddenly to an in- 



