312 VIREOS. 
NAMES: BE Lu’s VirEO, Bell’s Greenlet, Prairie Greenlet.— Prarie-Vireo (German). 
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SCIENTIFIC NAMES: VIREO BELLI Aud. (1844). 
DESCRIPTION: “Top of head and hind-neck, dull brownish-gray, gradually changing to grayish olive-green 
on back, scapulars, rump, and upper tail-coverts; a rather indistin@ loral streak and interrupted 
orbital ring, dull white; cheeks and ear-coverts, light brownish-gray, fading gradually into dull white 
or buffy-white of throat; median lower parts, white, the breast usually faintly tinged with sulphur- 
yellow; sides and flanks, sulphur-yellow, tinged with olive; under tail-coverts and under wing-coverts, 
clear pale sulphur-yellow. 
“Length, 4.20 to 5.25 inches;.wing, 2.18; tail, 1.88 inches.” (Ridgway’s ‘‘Manual of North 
American Birds.’’) 
Least Vireo, Vireo bellii pusillus Ripocw. “I well remember,” says Dr. Elliott 
Coues, ‘“when a copy of ‘Audubon’ first opened up to me, what seemed like a revelation 
—with what intensity I set myself to master the wonderful history—and the boyish 
despair I felt when I came to the Vireos! The very name was a mystery without a 
meaning, with a foreign sound, unlike Thrush, Warbler, or Sparrow, and there was a 
lot of these little myths, all alike greenish! I should have scouted the idea, had any 
one presented it, that there were any more Vireos in the world than Audubon knew; 
and that I should even discover a new one myself, would have seemed like a feverish 
dream.’’ 
Nevertheless our learned naturalist discovered one new species— V. vicinior—and 
a new form of Bell’s Vireo, the Least VIREO, Vireo bellii pusillus Ripcw., both in 
Arizona. The last named variety occurs chiefly in the lower parts of the territory, and 
California from Sacramento to Cape St. Lucas. Near Sacramento Prof. R. Ridgway 
found it nesting. In its habits and almost in every particular it closely resembles 
the typical V. bellii. 
Hurron’s Vireo, Vireo huttoni Cass., is a resident of California and resembles closely 
our common White-eyed Greenlet. According to Mr. Wm. Cooper, it breeds in the vicinity 
of Santa Cruz, though not in abundance. Retiring in habits, their nests and eggs are rarely 
found. April 7, 1874, he found a nest placed ten feet from the ground, suspended from 
a dead branch of a Negundo, containing three eggs.... March 30, 1875, he discovered 
another nest placed eight feet from the ground, suspended from a small twig of a 
Frangula. The nest—a neat, compact structure, composed of fine vegetable fibres, bits 
of paper, and grasses covered on the outside with green and gray mosses, lined with 
fine grasses— measures 3.25 inches in diameter outside, 1.75 inside; depth, 2.25 outside, 
1.50 inside. The eggs are white, marked with fine dots of reddish-brown, most numerously 
at the larger end. 
DESCRIPTION: ‘Above, decidedly olive, becoming more greenish posteriorly; beneath, decidedly tinged 
laterally with olive-yellow; wing-bands, narrow tinged with olive-yellow. 
“Length, 4.25 to 4.75 inches; wing, 2.43; tail, 2.06 inches.” (Ridgway.) 
A paler variety, STEPHEN’s VIREO, Vireo huttoni stephensi BREWSTER, inhabits 
Mexico, western Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Lower California. A nest found by 
Lieut. Benson, June 21, 1887, near Fort Huachuca, Arizona, was described by Capt. 
Chas. E. Bendire.* It was “attached to a fork of a small twig of some species of 
* Bull. Nuit. Club, III, p. 68. 
