Green, Greenish Gray, Olive, and Yellowish Olive Birds 
sides greenish yellow; wings have two distinct bars of 
yellowish white. Yellow line from beak to and around the 
eye, which has a white iris. Feathers of wings and tail 
brownish and edged with yellow. 
Range — United States to the Rockies, and to the Gulf regions and 
beyond in winter. 
Migrations — May. September. Summer resident. 
“ Pertest of songsters,” the white-eyed vireo makes what- 
ever neighborhood it enters lively at once. Taking up a resi- 
dence in the tangled shrubbery or thickety undergrowth, it 
immediately begins to scold like a crotchety old wren. It 
becomes irritated over the merest trifles — a passing bumblebee, 
a visit from another bird to its tangle, an unsuccessful peck at a 
gnat — anything seems calculated to rouse its wrath and set every 
feather on its little body a-trembling, while it sharply snaps out 
what might perhaps be freely constructed into “ cuss-words.” 
And yet the inscrutable mystery is that this virago meekly 
permits the lazy cowbird to deposit an egg in its nest, and will 
patiently sit upon it, though it is as large as three of her own tiny 
eggs; and when the little interloper comes out from his shell the 
mother-bird will continue to give it the most devoted care long 
after it has shoved her poor little starved babies out of the nest to 
meet an untimely death in the smilax thicket below. 
An unusual variety of expression distinguishes this bird’s voice 
from the songs of the other vireos, which are apt to be monoto- 
nous, as they are incessant. If you are so fortunate to approach 
the white-eyed vireo before he suspects your presence, you may 
hear him amusing himself by jumbling together snatches of the 
songs of the other birds in a sort of potpourri; or perhaps he will 
be scolding or arguing with an imaginary foe, then dropping his 
voice and talking confidentially to himself. Suddenly he bursts 
into a charming, simple little song, as if the introspection had 
given him reason for real joy. All these vocal accomplishments 
suggest the chat at once; but the minute your intrusion is discov- 
ered the sharp scolding, that is fairly screamed at you from an 
enraged little throat, leaves no possible shadow of a doubt as to 
the bird you have disturbed. It has the most emphatic call and 
song to be heard in the woods; it snaps its words off very 
short. “ Chick-a-rer chick” is its usual call-note, jerked out 
with great spitefulness. 
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