308 BLACK-CAPPED VIREO. 
the collections embodied in their domicile by the industrious little birds. The great 
bulk of the structure, however, is made up of fine strips of reddish bark, probably from 
some species of cedar, layers of small delicate, bleached leaves of a former year’s growth, ° 
a few coarse grasses, one or two catkins, and several spiders’ cocoons. These are firmly 
bound together, and the whole attached to the forked twigs above by fine shreds of 
vegetable fibre, caterpillars’ or spiders’ silk, and sheep’s wool. The lining is of fine 
grasses and what appear to be the slender needles of some -coniferous tree, the whole 
being arranged with that wonderful smoothness and care which belong to the highest 
order of nest-builders alone.... The eggs are regularly ovoid in shape, and of a uniform 
pure, though rather dull, white, without spots or marking of any kind. In this last 
respect all the specimens obtained during the past season in Comal County, Texas, agree. 
In reply to my inquiries on this point, Mr. Werner assures me that the closest scrutiny 
on his part has failed to discover even the faintest dotting upon any of the specimens 
that he has examined, while Mr. Ricksecker writes that his sets are exactly similar in 
shape and color to those now in my possession, and that all he has seen are entirely 
immaculate.”’ 
The Black-capped Vireo has been found breeding also in Medina, Comanche, 
Cooke, and Tom Green Counties, in Texas, and I have observed it in the live oak 
and mesquit prairies of Lee and Lafayette Counties. The late Col. N. S. Goss 
found this bird breeding in Kansas. In his excellent work, ‘History of the Birds of 
Kansas,” he gives the following description: ‘‘While collecting and observing birds in 
south-eastern Comanche County, Kansas, from May 7 to 18, inclusive, 1885, I captured 
three pairs of the Black-capped Vireo, and saw quite a number, all in the deep 
ravines in the gypsum hills, on the Red or Salt Fork of the Arkansas River. The 
birds were quite bold and noisy, but this may be the case only during mating and 
the early part of the breeding season. They are very pleasing singers, their song being 
not like the ‘Who’s-afraid,’ jerky notes of the White-eyed Vireo, nor as loud as those 
of the Red-eyed, but a more warbling and varied song than that of any other of the 
family which I have heard. On the 11th I found a nest near the head of a deep cajion, 
suspended from the forks of the end of a horizontal branch of a small elm tree, about 
five feet from the ground. It was screened from sight above by the thick foliage of the 
tree and the larger surrounding trees, but beneath, for quite a distance, there was 
nothing to hide it from view. The material, however, of which it was made so closely 
resembled the gypsum that had crumbled from the rocks above, and thickly covered the 
ground, that I should have passed it by unnoticed had I not, on my near approach, been 
attracted to the spot by the scolding and the excited actions of the birds. On discover- 
ing the nest, I did not stop to examine it, but kept leisurely on my course till out of 
sight, then cautiously turned back, and, at a safe distance, had the pleasure of seeing 
both of the birds busily at work building their nest, then about two-thirds completed. 
The nest is hemispherical in shape, and composed of broken fragments of old, bleached 
leaves, with here and there an occasional spider’s cocoon, interwoven together, and 
fastened to the twigs with fibrous strippings and silk-like threads from plants and the 
webs of spiders, and lined with fine stems from weeds and grasses. On the 18th, my 
last day in the vicinity, I went to the nest, confidently expecting to find a full set of 
