CHAPTER VI 



THE VIREOS OR GREENLETS 



Red-eyed Vireo — White-eyed Vireo — ^Yellow- 

 throated ViREO — Warbling Vireo 



When Dame Nature, the most thorough of housekeepers, 

 gave to the birds the task of restraining insects within 

 bounds so that man and beast could Kve, she gave the care 

 of fohage to the vireos. It is true that most of the war- 

 blers, and a few other birds, too, hunt for their food among 

 the leaves, but with nothing like the vireo's painstaking 

 care and thoroughness. The nervous, restless warblers 

 flit from twig to twig without half exploring the foliage; 

 whereas the deliberate, methodical, and tamer vireos search 

 leisurely above and below it, cocking their little heads so 

 as to look up at the under side of the leaf above them and 

 to peck oflE the destroyers hidden there — ^bugs of many 

 kinds and countless little worms, caterpillars, weevils, 

 inch-worms. May beetles, and leaf-eating beetles. Sing- 

 ing as they go, no birds more successfully combine work 

 and play. 



Because they spend their lives among the foliage, the 

 vireos are protectively colored, with soft grayish or olive- 

 green on their backs, wings, and tail, whitish or yellow be- 

 low. Some people call them greenlets. They are all a 



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