ld flit about in the bushes above
my head, their little white eyes gleaming with fire, and call me all
the names they could lay their tongues to. I wonder whether the
white-eyes have a dictionary of epithets. Nature has done an odd thing
in making the white-eyed vireo.

Their nests are not easy to find, although they do not always make a
great deal of effort at concealment. Like all the vireo tribe, they
suspend their tiny baskets from the fork or crotch of a horizontal
twig. The nest is somewhat bulkier than the compact little cup of the
red-eyed vireo, and is apt to be more carefully concealed in the
foliage, although I have found more than one nest that was hung in
plain sight. I remember one in particular. It was dangling from the
outer twigs of a small bush by the side of the woodland path which I
was pursuing. In fact, it could be distinctly seen from the path. In
spite of the mother's pleadings, protests, and objurgations, I stepped
over to inspect her pendant domicile, whose holdings were four baby
white-eyes, their eyelids still glued together. As the twigs stirred,
they opened their mouths for food, and I decided to accommodate them.
Taking a bit of cracker from my haversack, I moistened it, and rolled
it into a pellet between my finger and thumb; then, gently swaying the
bushes, I induced the bantlings to open their mouths, when I dropped
the morsel into one of the tiny throats. You ought to have seen the
wry face baby made as it gulped down the new kind of food, which had
such an odd taste. It was plain that the callow nestling was able to
distinguish this morsel from the palatable diet it had been accustomed
to. Possibly it suffered from a temporary fit of indigestion, but no
permanent harm was done by my experiment, for when I called on them
again a few days later, the birdkins four were safe and well, their
eyes open, and their instincts sufficiently developed to cause them to
cuddle low in their basket instead of opening their mouths.

[Illustration: White-eyed Vireo]

The rambler who would hear a real outdoor concert should rise early,
swallow a few bits of cracker and a cup of coffee, and seek some
bird-haunted hollow or woodland just as day begins to break. One
morning I pursued this plan, and was more than compensated for the loss
of an hour or two of sleep. Just as the east began to blush I found
myself in a favorite wooded hollow.

What a _potpourri_ of bird song greeted my ear!