_Muscicapa solitaria_, WILS. Am. Orn. II, 1810, 143, pl. xvii, fig.
6. _Vireo solitarius_, VIEILL.—AUD. I.—CASSIN, Sc.—SCLATER, P. Z.
S. 1856, 298 (Cordova); 1859, 363 (Xalapa); 375 (Oaxaca?).—SCLATER
& SALVIN, Ibis, 1860, 31 (Guatemala).—CAB. Jour. III, 468
(Cuba).—GUNDLACH, Cab. Jour. 1861, 324 (Cuba; very rare).—SAMUELS,
Birds N. Eng. 277. _Vireo_ (_Lanivireo_) _sol._ BAIRD, Birds N.
Am. 1858, 329. _Vireosylvia_ (_Lanivireo_) _solitaria_, BAIRD,
Rev. Am. B. 1864, 347.
[Line drawing: _Lanivireo solitarius._
29274]
SP. CHAR. (No. 300 ♂.) Above olive-green, including upper
tail-coverts; the top and sides of head and nape ashy-plumbeous; sides
of the neck plumbeous-olive. Broad line from nostrils to and around
eye, involving the whole lower eyelid, white. A loral line involving
the edge of the eyelid, and a space beneath the eye, dusky plumbeous.
Beneath white; the sides yellow, overlaid with olive, this color not
extending anterior to the breast. Axillars and base of crissum pale
sulphur-yellow, the long feathers of the latter much paler or nearly
white. Wings with two bands and outer edges of innermost secondaries
olivaceous-white; the quills dark brown, edged externally with
olive-green, internally with white; tail-feathers similarly marked,
except that the lateral feather is edged externally also with white,
the central without internal border. Bill and legs blackish-plumbeous.
Iris brown.
First quill spurious, rather more than one fifth the second, which is
intermediate between the fifth and sixth; third longest.
Fresh specimen: Total length, 5.40; expanse of wing, 9.00. Prepared
specimen: Total length, 5.25; wing, 2.95: tail, 2.35.
HAB. United States, from Atlantic to Pacific; Cape St. Lucas. Not
recorded from Southern Rocky Mountains, where replaced by _L.
plumbeus_. South to Mexico and Guatemala. Vera Cruz (winter,
SUMICHRAST). Very rare in Cuba.
Spring specimens show sometimes a gloss of plumbeous on the back,
obscuring the olive, the contrast of colors being greater in the
autumnal and young birds. Sometimes the crissum appears nearly white.
The length of the spurious primary varies considerably, from .45 to
.75 of an inch.
In autumn the colors are similar, but slightly duller and less sharply
defined, while the back is considerably tinged with ashy.
HABITS. The Solitary Vireo appears to be found, irregularly,
throughout the United States. Nowhere abundant, so far as I am aware,
it seems to be more common in California than on the Atlantic, while
there are also large tracks of intervening territory in which we have
no knowledge of its presence. On the Atlantic it has been met with
from Georgia to the Bay of Fundy. In Massachusetts it has been found
in a few restricted localities; in one or two of them, they are as
abundant as the White-eyed. Mr. Dresser found it in Texas, near San
Antonio, late in the autumn, and early in spring, but none remained to
breed. Mr. Boardman gives them as a summer visitant at Calais, but not
common, and Professor Verrill makes a similar statement for Western
Maine, where it arrives in the second week of May. According to Mr.
Allen, it reaches Western Massachusetts by May 1, but it is there
quite rare. A few are presumed to stop and breed.
In California, Mr. Gambel states that it is quite abundant in the
latter part of summer, and throughout the winter, frequenting low
bushes and thickets. Dr. Heermann also frequently met with it. Both at
the East and the West it is undoubtedly only migratory to about the
40th parallel, and does not, except in mountainous localities, breed
south of that line. Professor Baird found it breeding in the South
Mountains, near Carlisle, Penn., in May, 1844. It occurs in Guatemala
in the winter.
Dr. Cooper states that it reaches Puget Sound by the first of May, and
he has also observed it in the Colorado Valley, after the 14th, where
they made themselves conspicuous by their song, but in a few days had
all passed northward. He has met them nesting in May at the eastern
base of the Coast Range, and has also found them quite common, in
summer, on the Columbia River. Their favorite resorts are the
deciduous oaks.
These birds were found breeding at Fort Tejon by Mr. Xantus, and at
Vancouver by Mr. Hepburn.
Mr. Ridgway met with a few in September, in the thickets along the
streams flowing from the Clover Mountains.
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.