124 -~ Mr. Peabody on the 
searching every bud and blossom, and peeping under i 
the leaves. The cloudy weather, which is so de- 
pressing to most birds, has no effect upon the red- 
eye; he sings as cheerfully in the dark afternoon as 
in the brightness of the rising sun, seeming to hold 
a perpetual festival, and quenching his thirst with 
the drops of dew. 
The nest of the red-eye is suspended at various 
elevations, but never so high above the ground as 
that of the warbler. It is more particular in lining it 
than in building. The materials of the nest are mis- 
cellaneous ; the lining is of fibrous roots, pine leaves, 
and strings of the bark of vines, disposed in beautiful 
order. Init are three or four eggs, white, with spots 
of brown at the larger end. The red-eye is an at- 
tentive parent, and, for this reason perhaps, the 
cow-bird often chooses it as the nurse of its young: 
The eyes of the young birds are brown, and do not 
become red till the following spring. A species al- 
luded to in Audubon's description of the red-eye, as 
resembling it, but quite distinct, and which he prom- 
ises to describe in his fourth volume, is, as Dt 
Brewer informs me, sometimes seen in our State. 
The Mocxine-z1rv, Turdus polyglottus, is rarely 
seen in Massachusetts. The brown thrush is some- 
times mistaken for it by careless observers, and that 
fine bird, though not an imitator, at least to any great 
extent, has a depth, sweetness and variety of song, 
which even the far-famed mocking-bird cannot eX 
ceed 
