SONG BIRDS OF ORCHARD AND WOODLAND. 207 
less vigorous. Its song is a rather low, weak, but pleasing 
and continuous warble, resembling somewhat in quality the 
song of the Purple Finch, but not nearly so loud and bold. 
Tt has not the abrupt and intermittent phrasing of the song 
of the preceding species, but is sweeter, more tender, and 
less monotonous. 
This bird is of immense service to man in the destruction 
of vast numbers of injurious insects that infest the trees 
about the house, garden, and orchard, as well as those of 
the woods. As it is quite a flycatcher, both crawling larve 
and winged imagoes suffer from its depredations. Horseflies 
and other dipterous insects, crane flies and mosquitoes, are 
all taken. Its food, however, consists largely of caterpillars 
and other leaf-eating insects ; among these are the imported 
elm-leaf beetle ( Galerucella luteola) and the twelve-spotted 
cucumber beetle. Grasshoppers are not neglected. Occa- 
sionally useful flies, ladybirds, or bees are killed, but the 
great majority of insects eaten are injurious. The fruit taken 
seems to be mainly wild and worthless berries. 
Yellow-throated Vireo. 
Vireo flavifrons. 
Length. — Nearly six inches. 
Adult.— Above, yellowish olive-green, shading into bluish-ash on rump; mark- 
ings about eye yellow; white wing bars; wing and tail feathers dark, 
edged with whitish; below, yellow from throat to belly, which is white; 
sides olive, shading into gray. 
Nest.— A rather large pensile cup, hung from forking twigs, three to twenty feet 
from the ground. 
Eggs.— White, with black and brown or purplish spots about larger end. 
Season. — May to September. 
The Yellow-throated Vireo was once evidently an inhabitant 
of open forests of great deciduous trees, although it is some- 
times found in pines ; but since the destruction of the original 
timber growth in this Commonwealth it has learned to seek 
the great shade trees that have grown up along streets and 
about residences or in pastures. The groves of large oaks 
and other deciduous trees that are found on well-cared-for 
estates are among its favorite breeding places. It often 
dwells in old orchards. Thus it has come to live about the 
habitations of man, and in eastern Massachusetts is more 
