Lake Umbagog.
1903.
June 14
(No 2)
I came to the conclusion that the bird must be
sitting motionless on some leafy twig as Vireos will sometimes
do while singing. I therefore decided to throw a few
stones up into the foliage in the hope of starting him
out but just as I was about to hurl the first it
suddenly occurred to me that the males of certain
of our New England Vireos (especially the Warbling &
Solitary) are given to singing on the nest while taking
their turns at incubating the eggs. Dropping the stones
that I had collected I began again to walk slowly
around the tree looking, this time, for a nest instead
of a bird. I had taken scarce three steps when, through
an opening in the foliage, I caught sight of a globular
object of a light grayish-brown color fully thirty feet
above the ground in the middle of the tree and not
more than ten feet below its topmost twigs. Hastily raising
my glass and holding it still for a moment with no slight
difficulty, for I was by this time trembling with excitement,
I saw at the first glance that the object which had
arrested my attention was a small, neat and perfectly
new Vireo's nest attached to a short, lateral twig of
one of the slender, upright, terminal shoots which formed
the crown of the aspen. A moment later I made out
the head of the sitting bird moving restlessly from side
to side. Presently he began singing again when I could see 
his throat swell and his bill open slightly as he
delivered each successive note. Shortly after this he
left the nest and flew across the road into the top
of a much taller aspen where he perched on a dead
twig and remained motionless for several minutes singing
continuously. I had a fine view of him here for
Philadelphia Vireo