276 THE BIRDS 
This is the most common vireo of all the resident 
species. A sorry clump of second growth or bush-fringed 
woods it is that hasn’t a pair of these birds nesting in it. 
The bubbling spring, with its cool outlet for bird bathing 
purposes, also is seldom without a nesting pair within a 
vard or two, often overhanging the sparkling pool itself. 
How they do scold an intruder in their domain! The 
nest is suspended between a crotch of a limb of bush or 
tree, from two and a half to six feet from the ground. 
Like those of our warblers, the Cowbird (molothrus ater 
ater) has no scruples in depositing her egg or eggs in 
this bird’s nest, and I have found more White-eyed 
Vireos’ nests with Cowbirds’ eggs in them, deserted, than 
all others birds combined. Their nest is composed of 
weed stems, grasses, bits of bark fiber, moss, grasses, 
spider-webs, string and paper; in fact, anything handy 
that is soft. The nest is lined with fine grasses. Eggs, 
three to four in number, white, sparingly specked and 
blotched with brown, more numerous toward the larger 
end. Size, .75x.55. Fresh eges May 20th to June 15th, 
two broods a season. They arrive about April 10th, and 
migrate southward about August 30th. Their food con- 
sists of insects, caterpillars, and worms of various species. 
