WARBLING VIREO. 
309 
with a few small spots of blackish brown. In the Middle 
States they often raise 2 broods in the season, generally 
make choice of thorny thickets for their nest, and show 
much concern when it is approached, descending within 
a few feet of the intruder, looking down, and hoarsely 
mewing and scolding with great earnestness. This pet- 
ulant display of irritability is also continued when the 
brood are approached, though as large and as active 
as their vigilant and vociferous parents. In the Middle 
States this is a common species, but in Massachusetts 
rather rare. Its food, like the rest of the Yireos, is in- 
sects and various kinds of berries ; for the former of 
which it hunts with great agility, attention, and industry. 
The White-Eye is inches long, and 7 in extent ; wings 
and tail dusky brown, edged with olive-green, the latter forked. 
Bill, legs, and feet light bluish-grey ; the sides of the neck incline 
to grejush-ash. Female and young scarcely distinguishable in plu- 
mage from the male, 
WARBLING YIREO. 
(Vireo gilvus, Bonap. Muscicapa melodia, Wilson, v. p. 85. pi. 42. 
fig. 2. M. gilva , Vieill.) 
Sp. Charact. — Pale green olive; head and neck dilute ash-color; 
beneath, and line over the eye, whitish ; wings pale dusky 
brown, without bands ; irids brown ; 1st and 5th primaries about 
equal ; tail extending more than an inch beyond the closed wings. 
This sweetest and most constant warbler of the for- 
est, extending his northern migrations probably to the 
confines of Canada, arrives from tropical America, in 
Pennsylvania about the middle of April, and reaches this 
part of New England early in May. His livery, like 
that of the Nightingale, is plain and unadorned ; but 
the sweet melody of his voice, surpassing, as far as na- 
ture usually surpasses art, the tenderest airs of the flute, 
