368 NOTES ON THE 
distinctive habits in their summer abiding places. They are 
said to be exceedingly solitary and retiring, building an 
elegant, pensile nest hung about seven feet from the ground. 
SPECIFIC CHARACTERS. 
Spurious primary very small, not one-fourth the second, 
which is longer than the sixth. Top and sides of the head and 
upper part of the neck dark bluish ash; rest of upper parts 
clear olive green. A white ring around the eye, interrupted 
in the interior canthus by a dusky lore, but the white color 
extending above this spot to the base of the bill. Under parts 
white, the sides under the wings greenish yellow. Two bands 
on the wing coverts, with the edges of the secondaries, green 
ish white. Outer tail feather with its edge all round, including . 
the whole outer web, whitish. 
Length, 5.50; wing, 2.40. : 
Habitat, eastern United States to the Plains. In winter, 
south to Mexico and Guatemala. 
VIREO NOVEBORACENSIS (GMELIN). (631.) 
WHITE-EYED VIREO. 
Not an abundant species, arrives about the 25th of April 
and remains until about the first of October. It is not often 
seen, and only in low brush, along the borders of swamps, : 
where it builds its nest in June. of much the same material as 
the other Vireos employ, hung by the edge to the forks of the 
limb of a bush not far above the ground. The eggs are indis- — 
tinguishable from those of the Red-eyed Vireo, and are four or 
five in number. The note has been fairly spelled into ‘‘chip 
che’weeo, chip, chip, che’weeo” so far aS my own observation has 
extended, but others have given startling descriptions of its 
powers of song in other provinces which I have utterly failed 
to obtain in this. Mr. Burroughs endows him with habits of 
imitation only second to the Mocking Bird, and a ‘‘rari avis” 
indeed on general considerations. It certainly has not been 
my fortune to witness such exhibitions of his ‘‘unique tones.” 
While rejecting the more enthusiastic claims for the melody of 
its song, Langille is quite as emphatic over the variety and 
says in his ‘‘Birds in their Haunts,” pp. 254-56: ‘‘Butin July or 
August if you are on good terms with the sylvan deities, you may 
listen to a far more rare and artistic performance. Your first im- 
pression will be that that cluster of azaleas, or that clump of 
swamp huckle-berry, conceals three or four different songsters, 
each vying with the others to lead the chorus. Such a medley of 
notes, snatched from half the songsters of the field and forest, 
