This species was taken in winter by Mr. Boucard, at Talew, in the State of Oaxaca, Mexico.
Mr. Audubon’s statement that this bird is rather abundant, and that it breeds in Louisiana, is undoubtedly incorrect, and his description of its nest and eggs belongs rather to the Yellow-throated, and agrees with none that I have ever seen of this species. That he found them abundant in Maine, and traced them as far north as Pictou, Nova Scotia, is more probable. Dr. Bachman speaks of this species becoming each year more abundant in South Carolina, coming in February and remaining through March.
Mr. Nuttall, who met with this species on the Columbia, about the beginning of May, describes its song as a plaintive, deliberate warble, intermediate between the song of the olivaceus and the flavifrons. Mr. Burroughs describes the love-notes of these birds as being inexpressibly sweet and tender in both sexes. The song of the male, as I have heard it, bears no resemblance to that of any other Vireo. It is a prolonged and very peculiar ditty, repeated at frequent intervals and always identical. It begins with a lively and pleasant warble, of a gradually ascending scale, which at a certain pitch suddenly breaks down into a falsetto note. The song then rises again in a single high note, and ceases. For several summers the same bird has been heard, near my house in Hingham, in a wild pasture, on the edge of a wood, always singing the same singular refrain, during the month of June.
Mr. Nuttall found a nest of this species suspended from the forked twig of a wild crab-tree, about ten feet from the ground. The chief materials were dead and withered grasses, with some cobwebs agglutinated together, externally partially covered with a few shreds of hypnum, assimilating it to the branch on which it hung, intermingled with a few white paper-like capsules of the spiders’ nests, and lined with a few blades of grass and slender root-fibres.
Seven nests of this species, found in Lynn and Hingham, Mass., exhibit peculiarities of structure substantially identical. In comparison with the nests of other Vireos, they are all loosely constructed, and seem to be not so securely fastened to the twigs, from which they are suspended. One of these nests, typical of the general character, obtained in Lynn, May 27, 1859, by Mr. George O. Welch, was suspended from the branches of a young oak,
about twelve feet from the ground. The external depth of this nest was only two and a half inches, the diameter three and a quarter, and its cavity one and three quarters inches deep, and two inches wide at the rim. It was constructed externally of strips of yellow and of gray birch-bark, intermingled with bits of wool and dry grasses. The external portion was quite loosely put together, but was lined, in a more compact manner, with dry leaves of the white pine, arranged in layers. Another nest, found in Hingham, was but two feet from the ground, on a branch of a hickory sapling. In its general structure it was the same, only differing in shape, being made to conform to its position, and being twice as long as it was broad. It contained four young, when found, about the 10th of June. One nest alone, built on a bush in Lynn, exhibits even an average degree of compactness in its external structure. This is largely composed of cocoons, which are woven together into a somewhat homogeneous and cloth-like substance. Within, decayed stems of grasses take the place of the usual pine-needles.
In the summer of 1870 a pair built their nest in a dwarf pear-tree, within a few rods of my house. They were at first very shy and would not permit themselves to be seen at their work, and suspended all labor when any one was occupied near their chosen tree. Soon after the construction of the nest two Cowbird’s eggs were deposited, which I removed, although the female only laid two of her own before she began to sit upon them. By this time she became more familiar, and would not leave her nest unless I attempted to lay hands upon her. She made no complaints in the manner of the White-eyed, nor sought to attack like the Yellow-throated, but kept within a few feet, and watched me with eager eyes, until I left her. Unfortunately, her nest was pillaged by a Black-billed Cuckoo, and I was unable to observe her feed her young, as I had hoped to do.
The eggs are of an oblong-oval shape, moderately pointed at one end, and of a white ground, less crystalline than in the other species of its kind. They are spotted pretty uniformly over the entire egg with dots of dark red and reddish-brown. They are usually five in number.
Lanivireo solitarius, var. cassini, Baird.
CASSIN’S VIREO.