Green, Greenish Gray, Olive, and Yellowish Olive Birds 
Migrations—May. Early October. Common during migrations; 
more rarely a summer resident south of Massachusetts. 
By no means the recluse that its name would imply, the 
solitary vireo, while a bird of the woods, shows a charming curi- 
osity about the stranger with opera-glasses in hand, who has. 
penetrated to the deep, swampy tangles, where it chooses to 
live. Peering at you through the green undergrowth with an 
eye that seems especially conspicuous because of its encircling 
white rim, it is at least as sociable and cheerful as any member of 
its family, and Mr. Bradford Torrey credits it with ‘‘ winning 
tameness.” ‘‘ Wood-bird as it is,” he says, ‘‘it will sometimes 
permit the greatest familiarities. Two birds I have seen, which 
allowed themselves to be stroked in the freest manner, while sit- 
ting on the eggs, and which ate from my hand as readily as any 
pet canary.” 
The solitary vireo also builds a pensile nest, swung from the 
crotch of a branch, not so high from the ground as the yellow- 
throated vireo’s nor so exquisitely finished, but still a beautiful 
little structure of pine-needles, plant-fibre, dry leaves, and twigs, 
all lichen-lined and bound and rebound with coarse spiders’ webs. 
The distinguishing quality of this vireo’s celebrated song is its 
tenderness : a pure, serene uplifting of its loving, trustful nature 
that seems inspired by a fine spirituality. 
Red-eyed Vireo 
(Vireo olivaceus) Vireo or Greenlet family 
Called also: THE PREACHER 
Length—5.75 to 6.25 inches. A fraction smaller than the English 
sparrow. 
Male and Female—Upper parts light olive-green; well-defined 
slaty-gray cap, with black marginal line, below which, and 
forming an exaggerated eyebrow, is a line of white. A 
brownish band runs from base of bill through the eye. The 
iris is ruby-red. Underneath white, shaded with light green- 
ish yellow on sides and on under tail and wing coverts. 
Range—United States to Rockies and northward. Winters in 
Central and South America. 
Migrations—April. October. Common summer resident. 
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