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 THE WARBLING FLYCATCHER OR VIREO 



ViREO GILVUS, BONAP. 

 PLATE CXVIII. Male and Female. 



While at the little village, now the city, of Camden, in New Jersey, 

 where I had gone for the purpose of watching the passage of certain 

 Warblers on their way north early in the month of May, I took lodgings 

 in a street ornamented with a long avenue of tall Lombardy poplars, one 

 of which almost touched my window. On it too I had the pleasure short- 

 ly afterwards of finding the nest of this interesting little bird. Never be- 

 fore had I seen it placed so low, and never before had I an opportunity 

 of examining it, or of observing the particular habits of the species with 

 so much advantage. The nest, although formed nearly in the same man- 

 ner as several others, which I have since obtained by cutting them down 

 with rifle balls, from the top twigs of the taU trees to which they were 

 attached, instead of being fastened in the fork of a twig, was fixed to 

 the body of the tree, and that of a branch coming off at a very acute 

 angle. The birds were engaged in constructing it during eight days, 

 working chiefly in the morning and evening. Pi-evious to their select- 

 ing the spot, I frequently saw them examining the tree, warbhng toge- 

 ther as if congratulating each other on their good fortune in finding 

 so snug a place. One morning I observed both of them at work ; they 

 had already attached some slender blades of grass to the knots on the 

 branch and the bark of the trunk, and had given them a circular disposi- 

 tion. They continued working downwards and outwards, until the struc- 

 ture exhibited the form of their delicate tenement. Before the end of the 

 second day, bits of hornets"" nests and particles of corn-husks had been 

 attached to it by pushing them between the rows of grass, and fixing 

 them with silky substances. On the third day, the birds were absent, 

 nor could I hear them anywhere in the neighbourhood, and tliinking that 

 a cat might have caught them from the edge of the roof, I despaired 

 of seeing them again. On the fourth morning, however, their notes at- 

 tracted my attention before I rose, and I had the pleasure of finding them 

 at their labours. The materials which they now used consisted chiefly of 

 extremely slender grasses, which the birds worked in a circular form 



