150 THE WARBLING VIREO. 



exhibited the form of their delicate tenement. Before the end of the second 

 day, bits of hornets' nests and particles of corn-husks had been attached to it 

 by pushing them between the rows of grass, and fixing them with silky 

 substances. On the third day, the birds were absent, nor could I hear them 

 anywhere in the neighbourhood, and thinking that a cat might have caught 

 them from the edge of the roof, I despaired of seeing them again. On the 

 fourth morning, however, their notes attracted my attention before I rose, 

 and I had the pleasure of finding them at their labours. The materials 

 which they now used consisted chiefly of extremely slender grasses, which 

 the birds worked in a circular form within the frame which they had pre- 

 viously made. The little creatures were absent nearly an hour at a time, 

 and returned together bringing the grass, which I concluded they found at a 

 considerable distance. Going into the street to see in what direction they 

 went, I watched them for some time, and followed them as they flew from 

 tree to tree towards the river. There they stopped, and looked as if care- 

 fully watching me, on which I retired to a small distance, when they resumed 

 their journey, and led me quite out of the village, to a large meadow, where 

 stood an old hay-stack. They alighted on it, and in a few minutes each had 

 selected a blade of grass. Returning by the same route, they moved so 

 slowly from one tree to another, that my patience was severely tried. Two 

 other days were consumed in travelling for the same kind of grass. On the 

 seventh I saw only the female at work, using wool and horse-hair. The eighth 

 was almost entirely spent by both in smoothing the inside. They would 

 enter the nest, sit in it, turn round, and press the lining, I should suppose a 

 hundred times or more in the course of an hour. The male had ceased to 

 warble, and both birds exhibited great concern. They went off and returned 

 so often that I actually became quite tired of this lesson in the art of nest- 

 building, and perhaps I should not have looked at them more that day, had 

 not the cat belonging to the house made her appearance just over my head, 

 on the roof, within a few feet of the nest, and at times so very near the 

 affrighted and innocent creatures, that my interest was at once renewed. I 

 gave chase to grimalkin, and saved the Vireos at least for that season. 



In the course of five days, an equal number of eggs was laid. They were 

 small, of a rather narrow oval form, white, thinly spotted with reddish-black 

 at the larger end. The birds sat alternately, though not with regularity as 

 to time, and on the twelfth day of incubation the young came out. I 

 observed that the male would bring insects to the female, and that after 

 chopping and macerating them with her beak, she placed them in the mouth 

 of her young with a care and delicacy which were not less curious than 

 pleasing to me. Three or four days after, the male fed them also, and I 



