192 ScientifiG Proceedings, Royal Dublin Society. 



always present, but in the fall they change to a vegetable diet, 

 eagerly consuming seeds and berries. They are quite fearless in 

 defence of their young, flying up to the intruder with incessant 

 chatterings and scoldings, and even when feeding exhibit no 

 uneasiness at a close approach. 



ViREO BELLI, Aud. BelVs Vireo. — A common summer visitor 

 to the prairie, frequenting small isolated clumps of low trees or 

 bushes, and beds of tall weeds, and never resorting to true 

 wooded districts, though occasionally seeking their food among 

 the branches of single trees. They never fly far at a time, 

 usually proceeding but a few feet, and then again dropping out 

 of sight. They arrive about the middle of April, and are very 

 accurate in the time of their departure, the 12th August being 

 the last occasion on which I observed them during two seasons. 

 They feed principally upon insects, but a few seeds- may often be 

 found mixed with these. The nests, which are beautiful little 

 structures, are suspended from two or three small twigs, near the 

 end of a branch, or from the finer stems of weeds, several of which 

 from different plants are often brought into requisition ; they are 

 formed of withered grass and leaves, with a little wool and cotton 

 sometimes intermixed, bound together and to the substances 

 from which they hang by spiders' webs, and always lined with 

 fine dry grass. They bring out two broods in the season, the 

 eggs being four or five in number. The nests and their contents 

 suffer greatly from predatory animals. 



Lanius ludovicianus, Linn. Loggerhead Shrike. — This 

 species, which from the similarity of colours is generally called 

 " Winter Mocking-bird " here, is an abundant winter visitor to 

 the prairie, where it arrives early in August, from which time 

 until October they pass further south in a continuous stream ; 

 they remain common but stationary during the winter, not 

 beginning to show symptoms of the northern migration until 

 March, and by the end of the following month all have dis- 

 appeared. These are most unsocial birds, not only showing the 

 greatest antipathy for the proximity of any members of their 

 own race, but also pursuing any other bird which may venture 

 near their perch, even Milvulus forficatus, the tyrant of the 

 prairie in summer, having to yield ignominiously. They chiefly 

 haunt fences and solitary trees, as mesquites, upon the prairie, 



