Brewster on the Philadelphia Vireo. 3 
other two on May 31. Although no additional ones were actually 
secured, several which were thought to be of this species were seen 
late in June, and for the first time we began to suspect that a few 
individuals might occasionally breed there. 
I do not know that the quiet of the Umbagog forests was again 
disturbed by any collector until my return to the old haunt in 
1879. On this occasion the experience of former years bade fair to 
be repeated. Two specimens of V. philadelphicus were shot on May 
27, and the fact that they were a mated pair again aroused my sus- 
picions ; but at that date only the earlier breeding birds were fairly 
settled, and the country was still filled with migrants. Another 
week saw the departure of the last of these, and the bird on 
which the chief interest centred had apparently gone with the 
rest. In the now leafy woods, the wild, clear notes of the Solitary, 
and the cheerful song of the Red-eye, were apparently the only 
Vireo voices. But at length as I was one day sitting in the shade 
of some young poplars, a Vireo, which had been singing overhead, 
arrested my attention by uttering a peculiar note. I listened in- 
tently for a moment, but the strain flowed on in the old familiar 
tones. “ Only a Red-eye,” I. said to myself, and was once more 
lapsing into inattention, when the note was repeated. I at once 
rose, and began to scrutinize the singer, but in the flickering light 
and shadow in which he moved it w r as difficult to get a good view 
of him ; so, much against my inclinations, I was forced to make 
use of my gun, and, with a shower of falling leaves, the fluttering 
little form came to the ground at my feet. One glance was suffi- 
cient, — it was a Philadelphia Vireo. 
It is needless to say that my delight scarcely equalled my sur- 
prise, for the mystery had been solved, but in a way that I little 
expected. Under the guise of an old friend, the little stranger had 
long and successfully concealed his identity. At least this was the 
natural inference at the moment, and it afterwards proved to be the 
correct one. For the experience of the succeeding few days fully 
established the fact that a certain proportion — perhaps ten per 
cent — of the singers that had previously passed unchallenged as 
Red-eyed Vireos were in reality of the rarer species. In fact, the 
latter birds turned out to be not very uncommon in suitable local- 
ities throughout the whole surrounding country. Nor were they 
confined to the water-shed of Umbagog, for I traced them as far 
southward as Newry, only five miles north of Bethel, and westward 
