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Birds, Vol. III, No 1, January 1898

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<h2>THE RED EYED VIREO.</h2> <hr style="width: 15%;" /> <div class="figleft"> <ANTIMG src="images/imgr.png" width-obs="91" height-obs="80" alt="R" title="" /></div> ED-EYED VIREO, Red-eyed Greenlet, and Red-eyed Fly-catcher are the names variously applied to this pretty representative of his family, of which there are about fifty species. The Red-eye is an inhabitant of Central America and Mexico, its northern limit being the lower Rio Grande valley in Texas. The exquisite little creature is tinted even more delicately than the Wax-wing, but with much the same glossy look and elegant air. The ruby-tinted eye, and the conspicuous white line above it, with its border, are good characteristics by which to distinguish it from its relatives. The Red-eyed Vireo is found alike in the shade trees of lawns, in orchards or woodlands, and is especially fond of sycamore groves along streams. The male is a tireless songster, and even at noon-tide of a sultry summer-day, when all other warblers are silent, his monotonous song will be heard. He-ha-wha, or he, ha, whip, in rising inflection, and he, ha, whee, in falling cadence. He has also a chip, a chatter like a miniature of the Oriole’s scold, heard only in the season of courtship, and a peculiarly characteristic querulous note which, like others, can not be described with accuracy. “The Preacher,” a name which Wilson Flagg has given this Vireo, exactly reflects the character of the bird and its song. “His style of preaching is not declamation,” says the writer. “Though constantly talking, he takes the part of a deliberate orator who explains his subject in a few words and then makes a pause for his hearers to reflect upon it. We might suppose him to be repeating moderately, with a pause between each sentence, ‘You see it—You know it—Do you hear me?—Do you believe it?’ All these strains are delivered with a rising inflection at the close, and with a pause, as if waiting for an answer.” From morning till night this cheery bird sings as he works, from May to September. “His tender and pathetic utterances,” says Brewer, “are in striking contrast to the apparent indifference or unconsciousness of the little vocalist who, while thus delighting the ear of the listener, seems to be all the while bent on procuring its daily food, which it pursues with unabated ardor.” As noxious and destructive insects constitute the Vireo’s chief food he may properly be classed among the beneficent birds. Seeking for these is his constant occupation, as he hops along a branch, now peering into some crevice of the bark or nook among the foliage, ever uttering his pretty song during the interval between swallowing the last worm and finding the next. The nest of the Red-eye is built in a horizontal branch of a tree, usually in a small sapling that responds to all the caprices of the wind, thus acting as a cradle for the little ones within. The nest is cup-like in shape, and always dependent from small twigs, around which its upper edges are firmly bound, with a canopy of leaves overhead. It is woven of a variety of materials, fine strips of bark, fibres of vegetables, and webs of spiders and caterpillars. It is said that two nests of the same species are rarely found alike. Some are built of paper fibres, and bits of hornets’ nests, and another may be a perfect collection of scraps of all sorts. The eggs are three or four, white with a few black or umber specks about the larger end. It was in the nest of the Red-eyed Vireo that Hamilton Gibson found twisted a bit of newspaper, whose single legible sentence read: “* * * have in view the will of God.”* <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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