THE GOkltECTORS' fflONTHItY. 



Devoted to Ornithology, Oology and JSiatural History. 



Bell's Vireo in Kansas. 



[Written For the Collectors' Monthly.] 

 This fussy, fidgety, little bunch of olive- 

 grey feathers returns from the South to 

 Kansas about the tenth of May, after 

 which time his bright nervous cherrupy 

 song is well nigh the only clue one has to 

 the songster's presence. Like all the 

 small fry among our avifauna, the Bell's 

 Vireo is never still, and he is seldom silent. 

 His worm hunting song has a hopeful 

 ring, and his manifest industry merits a, 

 rich reward. His home in Eastern 

 Kansas, is almost wholly among the 

 osage hedges, (I have found but two 

 nests in the orchards) beneath the very 

 lowest branches of the osage, well on 

 toward the tops. In the main the work of 

 nesting is begun about the twentieth of 

 May. The work for a wonder is very 

 leisurely done, two weeks hardly suffic- 

 ing for its construction. The nest is sad- 

 dled to a horizontal crotch. Spider-webs, 

 bark-strippings, grnsses, and tiny co- 

 coons make up the exterior, next is added 

 in many normal nests, a layer of bark- 

 strips from the often exposed roots of 

 the osage; the bright yellow of which 

 presents a very striking sight in partly 

 completed nests. The whole fabric is 

 finished with a snug lining of tine grasses, 

 to which is added in rare cases, a few 

 horse hairs. 



When to be readily found, paper is used. 

 I recall one exquisite nest, now in Eng- 

 land, that was largely made of bits of 

 paper evidently made to-order by mice. 

 The tiny white bangles clustered thickly 



about the well rounded cups, betraying 

 its owner, at last, as ostentations 

 beauty often does. In structure the nests 

 vary, some are shabby genteel, while the 

 majority are delicately rounded and 

 daintly finished; for the little workers 

 would seem rapidly t () attain perfection. 

 I have found a few nests that seemed to 

 have broken away, repeatedly from the 

 branch on one side and had then been 

 clumsily " togged'' on again. One nest 

 found, in 1890, had a rag-tag and bob- 

 tail foundation that swayed down ten 

 inches below the nest. As perfect a nest 

 as I ever found was made almost entirely 

 of grasses. It was perfectly rounded and 

 and deeply cupped, and lined very thick- 

 ly with the fine yellow stems of The fox- 

 tail. This was in its finish the work of a 

 m;ile bird, the female having been un- 

 fortunately shot. 



The cuppingis hemispherical in general, 

 but a few nests are very deeply cupped* 

 In such, one sees when they are occupied, 

 but a bit of gray-tail : appoint of horny 

 beak, and two keen Black beads of eyes. 

 The locus of the nest is very uniform. It 

 being almost always beneath the lower 

 branches, this fact gives a near by uniform 

 height from the ground of about twenty 

 inches. But very often the distance is 

 from thirty to forty, and in one extreme 

 case, the nest was tire feet from the 

 ground, although there were lower 

 branches. 



The normal date when sets are to be 

 found completed is about Juneeight. In 

 1891, the nesting was from seven to ten 

 days later, for no apparent reason. 



