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 1 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. 



176 



