288 RED-EYED VIREO. 
bits of old leaves. In Texas the outside of the nest was always covered beautifully 
with grayish-green Usnea lichens, and in some instances with Spanish moss. These very 
peculiar and exceedingly beautiful nests are very compact and durable, “hanging for 
many months after they have been deserted; and when the leaves lave fallen, revealing 
the trees in their nakedness, these structures become conspicuous along the road-side, 
around the edges of clearings, and among the dogwood and Judas trees that form the 
undergrowth of our noble oak forests.” (Coues.) The eggs, usually four in number, 
are pure white, sparsely sprinkled with small and sharp dark reddish-brown dots, chiefly 
about the larger end. The Red-eye’s nest is frequently chosen by the Cowbird for the 
deposition of her parasitic eggs, and these foster-parents are singularly devoted to the 
alien offspring, whom they tenderly nurture, even to the neglect of their own young. 
Many broods of this Vireo are every year destroyed by this parasitic trait of the 
Cowbird. I have found frequently one, often two and even three Cowbird’s eggs in 
one Vireo’s nest. Dr. T. M. Brewer says that in one instance three eggs of a Cowbird 
were deposited in the nest of the Vireo before any of her own, and, without laying any, 
the female Vireo proceeded to sit upon and hatch the intruders. In another case, where 
two of the Vireos had been laid, two Cowbird’s eggs were added. The Vireo stopped 
laying, and proceeded to incubate. In each instance the female Vireo seemed to forego 
her own natural aspirations, and at once conform to the new situation. 
NAMES: RED-EYED VirEO, Red-eye, Red-eyed Greenlet, Red-eyed Flycatcher.— Waldvireo (German). 
SCIENTIFIC NAMES: Muscicapa olivacea Linn. (1766). VIREO OLIVACEUS Bonar. (1826). Vireo- 
sylvia olivacea Bonap. (1850). 
DESCRIPTION: “Upper parts, olive-green. Top of head from bill to nape, ash-color. A white line from 
nostrils above and beyond the eye, bordered above by a dusky line forming the edge of the ashy cap, 
and below by a similar, perhaps paler, loral and post-ocular cheek-stripe. Beneath, including tibie, 
white, with perhaps a tinge of olivaceous ash across the breast; the sides of the neck, like the back; 
sides of body with a faint wash of olive. Axillars and crissum, faintly tinged with sulphur-yellow; 
lining of wings and its edge, the latter especially nearly white. Quills, blackish-brown, edged exter- 
nally, except at ends of primaries, with olive; internally with white. Tail-feathers, lighter brown, 
edged externally like the back, internally with pale olivaceous white. Bill, dusky above, pale below; 
tarsi, plumbeous. Iris, red. 
“Length, 6.33 inches; wing, 3.33; tail, 2.50 inches. 
“Female, similar, but duller in plumage.” (Ridgway.) 
BLACK-WHISKERED VIREO, Vireo altiloquus barbatulus Cours. This bird, abundant 
in the Bahamas and Cuba, is a common migrant, and breeds numerously on all of the 
mangrove keys of the west coast of Florida, as far north at least as the mouth of 
Anclote River, near Tarpon Springs. Mr. W. E. D. Scott says that the birds arrive 
there about May 10 to 15, and that the species seems to be confined almost exclusively 
to the mangrove keys, and is very difficult to obtain, even when seemingly plentiful, as 
they are wary and shy, and the cover in which they resort is dense and impenetrable. 
The YELLOW-GREEN VIRED, Vireo flavoviridis BarrD, is a rather common summer 
resident in the valley of the lower Rio Grande in Texas, southward to Panama. 
