CHAPTER VI. 



RED-EYED VIREOS. 



THE moment I touched the spreading branch of a witch-hazel bush out flew a bird, 

 and the next instant my eye rested on the nest of a Red-eyed Vireo. It was 

 suspended between the forks of a twig about six feet from the ground, and was 

 well protected and concealed by the leaves. It then contained two young birds, four or 

 five daj's old. After examining it carefully I retired, but before doing so fixed a cord to 

 the branch and drew down the nest so that its brim was horizontal, and the whole about 

 four feet from the ground, a convenient height for future study. 



The young were quite naked, save for a sprinkling of light down on their heads and 

 backs. They had yellow-rimmed bills, bright yellow throats, and were just beginning 

 to see through the narrow vertical slits, which admit light gradually to the ej'es. The old 

 birds betrayed no unusual anxiety, but uttered their unobtrusive piort ! piort ! and the 

 female soon approached with an insect. This nest was surrounded by tall bushes with 

 barely space to pitch the tent in front of it, and as I decided to make no further changes, 

 a somewhat spotted leafy background was unavoidable in the pictures. Coming again on 

 July 31st, the tent was soon in place. The female, who was brooding at the time, flew 

 off quickly, but returned in a few moments. 



These Vireos soon became quite unconscious of being observed, although literally as 

 near the eye as one would hold a book to read. I spent parts of three days on this spot 

 watching a most fascinating panorama of bird-life. On the third day the tent was moved 

 up to within eighteen inches of the nest, but my lack of experience at this time in photo- 

 graphing moving objects at such close range was the cause of many failures. 



On the first day it required forty minutes to restore perfect confidence, or before the 

 affairs of the nest were conducted with their usual regularity. The young raised their 

 heads aloft and called loudly for attention, or hung drowsily over the brim of the nest. 

 At this time their skin was dotted with the fine rapidly growing feathers, and the wing- 

 quills looked like slender paint brushes, having just burst the tips of the cylindrical horny 

 tubes in which they grow. 



The old birds examined the situation carefully. Their mournful piort ! piort I was 

 heard again and again, the male answering his mate as she deliberately approached 

 the nest. After advancing many times, and turning back as often through fear 

 or distrust, the mother hopped up briskly with a bee in her beak. Her instinct to 

 care for her young was stronger than the male's, and she almost invariably approached 

 in the same way, by the path of the twig in the fork of which hung the nest. A smaller 

 division in the fork gave off a still smaller branch close to the nest, and upon this the 



64 



