Mr. Brown says that while not much seen in summer it is a not uncommon summer resident and fairly plentiful in spring.
Mr. Bartsch writes as follows: “Only two of these birds have come under my observation; one at Burlington some years ago, and one at Iowa City last spring. This bird prefers the low, dense willows and especially small trees overgrown by a dense mass of grape-vines. Had it not been for the lively and pleasing manner with which they delivered their clear, ringing song, I should have overlooked them in a tangle of green.”
Mr. D. L. Savage sends the following valuable notes in this connection: “Not common. Have never found a nest, although I have noted the birds in migrations, and also quite late in the spring.” Mr. Walter G. Savage, VanBuren Co., found a nest with two eggs, July 18, 1894. Nest was placed in hazel bush eighteen inches up and composed of pieces of rotten chips—such as the Chickadee pecks out of its hole—moss, small pieces of leaves, cobwebs and lined with very fine grass and inner bark fibers of wild grape-vine.
633. V. bellii. (Aud.)
BELL’S VIREO.
The notes on this Vireo are not voluminous enough for the compiler to derive from them any general conclusions as to numbers, dates and nesting site.
Mr. Law finds it abundant in Dallas Co., but less so in Winnebago. He has found the species breeding in the former, and Mr. Fred Hamlin took a set of three incubated eggs on June 23, 1894. One of these was situated in a hazel bush one foot up.
Mr. Woods finds it of common occurrence in Fayette Co., but not abundant. “The eggs average a trifle smaller than the other species.”
Mr. Peck, writing from Black Hawk Co., reports it abundant everywhere among thickets and underbrush in summer. The nest, which is small, he finds situated two to six feet from the ground. Noted as a late migrant, breeding far into August. It “is almost as quarrelsome,” he says, “as the Yellow-throated. Its song is lively and shrill and distinguishable at a great distance.”
Mr. D. L. Savage says, “Not uncommon, favorable locations being in bramble bushes and thickets of undergrowth. It has a rollicsome little song which always brings gladness with it. I have never had the good fortune to find a nest, although I have searched repeatedly for it, while the old birds were making quite an ado. It must be well concealed.”
Mr. Bryan writes that he has seen it quite numerous in Mahaska Co., along wood-roads; and has secured one nest in a hazel bush in a river pasture.