Birds and Nature Vol. 10 No. 5 [December 1901]
Various
Various
Birds and Nature Vol. 10 No. 5 [December 1901]
SNOW-FLAKES
Out of the bosom of the Air,
Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
Silent, and soft, and slow
Descends the snow.
Even as our cloudy fancies take
Suddenly shape in some divine expression,
Even as the troubled heart doth make
In the white countenance confession,
The troubled sky reveals
The grief it feels.
This is the poem of the air,
Slowly in silent syllables recorded;
This is the secret of despair,
Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,
Now whispered and revealed
To wood and field.
    – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
O wonderful world of white!
When trees are hung with lace,
And the rough winds chide,
And snowflakes hide
Each break unsheltered place;
When birds and brooks are dumb, – what then?
O, round we go to the green again!
    – G. Cooper, “’Round the Year.”
THE WHITE-EYED VIREO.
(Vireo noveboracensis.)
“And then the wren and vireo
Begin with song to overflow.”
    – Thomas Hill – “Sunrise.”
The vireos form a peculiar and interesting family – the Vireonidæ, which includes about fifty species. All are strictly American and the larger number inhabit only the forest or shrubby regions of Central and South America. The name vireo signifies a green finch and is from the Latin word meaning “to be green.” The body color of nearly all the species is more or less olive green.
About fifteen species frequent the United States. These are all members of the genus Vireo, and some of them have a wide range, only equaled in extent by some of the warblers.
Dr. Coues has said of these birds: “Next after the warblers the greenlets (vireos) are the most delightful of our forest birds, though their charms address the ear and not the eye. Clad in simple tints that harmonize with the verdure, these gentle songsters warble their lays unseen, while the foliage itself seems stirred to music. In the quaint and curious ditty of the white-eye, in the earnest, voluble strains of the red-eye, in the tender secret that the warbling vireo confides in whispers to the passing breeze, he is insensible who does not hear the echo of thoughts he never clothes in words.”
The vireos are strikingly alike. In habit, in color, in structure, in size and in their home-building peculiarities they resemble each other. Their eggs are similar and “fashioned almost as from the same mold, and colored as if by the same brush.”
The vireos build pensile nests that are ingeniously concealed under the surrounding foliage. They are in the form of a rather deep cup, which is suspended from two or more converging twigs. The materials used in the construction are similar in all cases, though they vary somewhat according to the locality and the abundance of desirable textiles. A favorite substance used by some of the birds is the tough and flexible fibers of the inner bark of trees. Thoreau, speaking of this habit, says: “What a wonderful genius it is that leads the vireo to select the tough fiber of the inner bark instead of the more brittle grasses!”
The White-eyed Vireo has an extensive range, extending over the eastern United States from the Atlantic Ocean to the great plains and from Mexico and Guatemala, where it winters, northward to the borders of British America. It nests practically throughout its range within the United States.
This pert and trim little bird is known by other suggestive names. Because of the character of its nest it is called the “little green hanging bird.” Its song, as translated by boys, has given it the name “chickty-bearer,” or “chickity.” Except when nesting this vireo is unsuspecting and will permit a near approach. Dr. Brewer says that “when whistled to it will often stop and eye you with marked curiosity, and even approach a little nearer, as if to obtain a better view, entirely unconscio