122 
VEETEBEATA. 
beetles and other hard-skinned species, while others principally devour the small insects which 
they take on the wing, and others, again, appear to have a predilection for caterpillars, for which 
they search the leaves of the trees. They also occasionally eat berries. They build their nests 
sometimes in trees, sometimes in thick bushes, forming them of dry leaves, grass, fibrous roots, 
moss, and lichens, &c. 
Genus VIEEO : Vireo. — This includes several species, often called Greenlets. The Eed-eyed 
Fly-Catcher or Whip-Tom-Kelly, V. olivaceus, is a very numerous and familiar species, even ven- 
turing into parks, gardens, and yards of cities, where it rears its young and sings its song. Wilson 
says: "In Jamaica, whei-e this bird is resident, it is called, as Sloane informs us, Whip-tom-kelly, 
from an imagined resemblance of its notes to these words. And, indeed, on attentively listening 
for some time to this bird in his full ardor of song, it requires but little of imagination to fancy 
that you hear it pronounce these words, 'Tom kelly, whip-tom-kelly !' very distinctly." But Mr. 
Gosse, who has furnished us with several excellent works on Natural History, and heard this bird 
often in Jamaica, states that its notes bear a very close resemblance to the syllables " John-to-whit," 
pronounced with an emphasis on the last syllable; an evidence of a fact we have before noticed, 
that two persons, in attempting to write down the notes of birds, rarely give precisely the same 
syllables. 
The other noted species of Vireo are as follows : the White-eyed Fly-Catcher, V. JVove- 
boracensis, a small species, but a loud singer, noted, as AVilson says, for introducing fragments of 
newspaper into the construction of its nest, whence some of his friends proposed to call the bird 
the Politician : the Yellow-throated Greenlet, V. Jlavifrons, five and a half inches long, and 
of a greenish-olive color : the Solitary Greenlet, V. solitarius, four and a half inches long, 
dusky-olive color : the AVarbling Fly-Catcher, V. c/ilvus, a pleasing singer : all the preceding 
common in the United States : the V. altilogims, occasionally visiting Florida, and having some 
curious notes : the Black-headed Fly-Catcher, V. atricapillus^ recently discovered in Texas, 
seven and a half inches long, above dark olive-green, below white. To these may be added the 
V. Bartrami^ io\m^ in New Jersey and Kentucky: the V. longirostris of the Antilles: the V. 
belli of the upper Missouri. 
THE TRUE FLY-CATCHERS. 
In these the form of the bill closely resembles that of the Yireos ; but this organ is rather 
longer, and has the ridge slightly flattened at first, but curved toward the tip. The gape is fur- 
nished with bristles ; the wings are long and pointed, and the toes are short, the outer lateral toe 
being longer than the inner one. 
These birds, which exhibit the characteristic habits of the family in their greatest perfection, 
are pretty generally distributed over both hemispheres, but more especially in the tropical re- 
gions. The species which occur in the temperate and colder regions, generally are summer birds 
of passage. 
Genus MUSCICAPA : Muscicapa. — This includes the Spotted Fly-Catcher, M. griscola, the 
most familiar and abundant European species, six inches long, of a brownish tint above, with a 
few dark spots on the head, and dull white beneath ; it is common during the summer in Eng- 
land, France, and generally over Europe. In England its nest is usually placed in a hole in a 
wall, in a faggot stack, or an out-building, but the branches of trees trained against a wall are 
sometimes selected for its reception. A pair have also been known to build on the head of a 
garden-rake, which had been accidentally left standing near a cottage ; another pair built in a 
bird-cage ; but the most curious instances of caprice in this matter are those of two pairs of these 
birds which selected street lamp-posts for the purpose of nidification. 
Among other foreign species are the Pied Fly-Catcher, M. atricapilla, common in the south of 
Europe : called Bec-figue or Fig-Pecker by the French, because it catches insects on the fig-trees, 
and, it is said, eats the figs when ripe ; the Collared Fly-Catcher, M. alhicollis^ subject to very 
great changes of plumage ; and the M. scita, an extremely small species of Southern Africa. 
The Crested Gobe Mouche of Bufi'on — M. coronata of Latham — is a handsome South American 
species, which is noted for catching butterflies which flutter around the cotton-plants. 
