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One of his brothers, whose eyes are white instead of red, and who lives in the bushes instead of high woods, is called 'The Politician' from his fondness for newspapers not that he can read them, of course, but he likes to paper his nest with clippings from them, which is his way of making a scrap-book." The Red-eyed Vireo Length about six inches.
When twenty rods distant, I hear all along the line of the forest the incessant warble of the red-eyed vireo, cheerful and happy as the merry whistle of a schoolboy. He is one of our most common and widely distributed birds.
I have no proof that wild birds improve in singing. One does not hear a vireo, or a finch, or a thrush, or a warbler that is noticeably inferior as a songster to its fellows; their songs are all alike, except in the few rare cases when one hears a master songster among its kind; but whether this mastery is natural or acquired, who shall tell?
Magnify it enough times, say, many thousand times, and what a terrible-looking monster we should have a traveling arch of contracting and stretching muscular tissue, higher than your head, and measuring off the ground a rod or more at a time, or standing twenty feet or more high, like some dragon of the prime. But now it is a puny insect of which the caroling vireo overhead would quickly dispose.
Many of our most familiar birds, which are inseparably associated with one's walks and recreations in the open air, and with the changes of the seasons, are yet awaiting their poet, as the high-hole, with his golden-shafted quills and loud continued spring call; the meadowlark, with her crescent-marked breast and long-drawn, piercing, yet tender April and May summons forming, with that of the high-hole, one of the three or four most characteristic field sounds of our spring; the happy goldfinch, circling round and round in midsummer with that peculiar undulating flight and calling PER-CHICK'-O-PEE, PER-CHICK'-O-PEE, at each opening and shutting of the wings, or later leading her plaintive brood among the thistle-heads by the roadside; the little indigo- bird, facing the torrid sun of August and singing through all the livelong summer day; the contented musical soliloquy of the vireo, like the whistle of a boy at his work, heard through all our woods from May to September:
You remember the White-eyed Vireo, and in Florida there is a Towhee who has white eyes; but this is so unusual that it makes the bird look to you as if it were blind, until you understand that it is the natural color. Most birds' eyes are brown of some shade, or perfectly black; a few have blue or green eyes. But where did I leave Mr. Jore-e Blur-re?"
The red-eye is classed among the flycatchers by some writers, but is much more of a worm-eater, and has few of the traits or habits of the Muscicapa or the true Sylvia. He resembles somewhat the warbling vireo, and the two birds are often confounded by careless observers. Both warble in the same cheerful strain, but the latter more continuously and rapidly.
A gentle breeze set all the leaves to fluttering; far off a woodpecker drummed his salute to his fellows; beyond the trees we could hear the indigo bird singing; but nothing about us was stirring. The wood-pewee was unheard, and even the vireo seemed to have finished his endless song and gone his way.
a vireo, repeating over and over his few notes in tireless warble; high up in the maple across the chasm, a sweet-voiced goldfinch singing his soul away outside; and lastly, a robin, who broke the charm by a peremptory demand to know my business in his private quarters. I rose to leave him in possession.
I will tell you what happens every season to some poor Warbler, Sparrow, or Vireo, on account of this strange bird. "A Song Sparrow builds her nest in the grass; an egg is laid, the bird looks proudly at it, and may perhaps fly off for a few minutes. Meanwhile, peeping and spying, along comes a Cowbird.
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