Concord, Mass.
1902.
June 18
(No 2)
make out was a shapeless mound of feathers
with a tail projecting over one side of the nest. As
the light was still strong and my eyes within six
inches of the nest and nearly a foot above it I could
not well have been deceived. Moreover when I finally
shook the branch slightly I distinctly saw the bird
draw out her entire head from beneath her breast,
not without effort; after which she held her head
and neck in the usual position. I am in doubt
as to whether she had been merely fondling her young
with her bill or whether she had gone to sleep in
the position in which I first found her. I watched
her closely for at least two minutes before touching
the branch but observed no motion, not even that
of the pulsations caused by breathing so often noticed
in sitting birds. Gilbert tells me that he looked at
the nest about ten minutes after I had left it
and that the Vireo's head was then in sight although
she was resting her bill on the side of the nest.
Red-eyed Vireo
  As I have already noted, this nest contained one
egg at 7 A.M. on June 2nd (it was empty at 7 P.M.
on the 1st.) and four on June 5th (at 9 A.M.). Assuming
that the bird began incubating on the morning of the
5th (she was then on the nest & apparently sitting steadily)
it has taken her thirteen (13) days to hatch three
of her eggs.
Period of incubation 13 days
  In the garden at Cambridge to-day (at 1 P.M.)
I saw a male Red-eye feed his sitting mate. He
approached the nest by a succession of short flights
singing steadily the while although he held in the tip of 
his bill the morsel of food which his mate took from him
without leaving her eggs. It looked like a small beetle.
male Red-eyed Vireo feeds his sitting mate.
31