RED-EYED VIREO. 285 
forests of white-pines, the Passenger Pigeon, and the early settlers. The pioneer poet, 
General Conrad Krez, who made the forests of central Wisconsin his home over forty 
years ago, truly says in his elegiac lines: 
“All, all about me the world has changed, and I recognize scarcely 
Now the haunts where, when young, chasing, I followed the deer.” 
Even the people themselves have changed—changed in their aspect of life, their 
way of thinking, their aspirations. The sturdy old weather beaten settlers felt happier 
in the midst of the forest primeval in their simple log-cabins, on their own soil following 
the plow drawn by their slow ox-team, than the present generation, living in compara- 
tive ease. If to-day we enter the sparse remnants of the once so magnificent woods, 
we notice burned logs, masses of old branches, stumps, uprooted trees, and a peculiar 
quietness. The many Pileated Woodpeckers whose drumming on the trees once sounded 
through the woods, the Rose-breasted Grosbeak, the resplendent Scarlet Tanagers, the 
Ruffed Grouse, the beautiful Wood Ducks, are nearly exterminated, or they are so shy 
that they are rarely seen or heard. Only one old woodland songster of the days of 
yore gives vent to its voice to-day even as then. It is one of our common and popular 
poets of the woods, the RED-EYED VIREO. 
This bird appears in large numbers from Texas to Manitoba, from Florida to Nova 
Scotia, and from the Atlantic west to the Rocky Mountains, being the most common 
woodland species of its family. It breeds wherever it is found in summer. Like the 
Warbling Vireo it lives for the most part in high, open woods, foraging for insects in 
the upper branches of the trees. In Wisconsin we find it common in the woods con- 
sisting of beeches, maples, iron-wood, hop trees, lindens, birches, cherry, hickory, 
butternut, and other trees. It is also found in the mixed woods, but rarely in the dark 
forests of white-pines and hemlocks. It is so familiar and fearless that it frequently 
breeds in the maples and elms near the farmer’s house, in the parks of crowded cities, 
and in the trees of the streets in villages and towns. Though often not easily detected 
in the dense foliage of the tall trees, we may almost constantly hear its exceedingly 
pleasant and lively strain. In the narrow stretches of woodland, which border the 
water-courses of northern Illinois, in the Ozark region of south-western Missouri, and 
in the post-oak woods of Texas, I found this Vireo a common summer sojourner. Even 
in the rather dim woods of the coast region, consisting of magnificent magnolias, 
loblolly bays, water, laurel, pin, and live-oaks, gigantic sycamores, cherry laurels, 
hollies, pecan trees, sweet gums, and many other trees this bird was a common summer 
resident from early April to late in September. There almost all the trees are heavily 
draped with the gray Spanish moss, and the trumpet creeper, smilax, and different 
grape-vines climb to the very tops of the tall trees. From the holly and other thickets 
the songs of numerous Cardinal Redbirds are heard, and the lively strain of the Yellow- 
throated Warbler, the unrivaled notes of the Mockingbird fall on our ear, but through 
this woodland concert may always be heard the voluble lay of the Red-eyed Vireo. 
Indeed, this was the first bird that welcomed me by its familiar notes, when I first 
entered these woods. The impression made by this strain during a time, when the 
sweet blossoms of the magnolias filled the air with powerful fragrance, when all the 
birds far and near chanted their most joyful songs, while all the trees, shrubs, and 
