BULLETIN 
OF THE 
NUTTALL OKNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 
Vol. V. JANUARY, 1880. No. 1. 
NOTES ON THE HABITS AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE 
PHILADELPHIA YIREO ( VIREO PHILADELPHICUS ). 
BY WILLIAM BREWSTER. 
The type specimen of this interesting little Vireo was obtained 
near Philadelphia, by Mr. Cassin, in September, 1842. For many 
years succeeding the publication of his description, in 1851, the 
species seems to have almost entirely eluded observation, and it 
was not until about the beginning of the last decade that the prob- 
lem of its distribution began to be solved, while there probably 
remains much to be learned regarding this point. We now know, 
however, that it extends over Eastern North America from Hud- 
son’s Bay to Central America, while in certain portions of the 
Mississippi Valley it occurs regularly and in considerable numbers 
during the spring and fall migrations. Its breeding range does not 
seem to have been so well made out, but Mr. Nelson found one or 
two pairs near Chicago in July, 1874 (Bulletin Essex Institute, Vol. 
VIII, p. 102), and Professor Aughey gives it in his list of locust- 
eating birds as a summer resident in Eastern Nebraska (Notes on 
the Nature of the Food of the Birds of Nebraska, p. 27). This 
latter record appears to be the most western one for the United 
States. 
But it is more particularly of the history and distribution of the 
Philadelphia Vireo in our Eastern States, with a few original facts 
regarding its habits, that I wish to treat in the present article. Its 
title to a place in the fauna of New England was first established 
by Professor C. E. Hamlin, who took a single specimen at Water- 
vol. v. 1 
