508 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Family SYLVIIDAE 



Old-world Warblers and Kinglets 

 The structural characteristics of this family are practically the same 

 as those of the thrushes, both as to the nature of the wing, bill, nostrils 

 and booted tarsus, as well as the condition of the toes, which are mostly 

 cleft except the first half joint of the inner and outer. In size, however, 

 they are diminutive as compared to the thrushes and they undergo a 

 double moult each year, while the young are unspotted. They are fully 

 as melodious as the thrushes to which they are so closely related, among 

 their members numbering the famous Nightingale and Blackcap of Europe, 

 while in our own country the Ruby-crowned kinglet is regarded by many as 

 one of our very best songsters of the spring. They are probably more bene- 

 ficial even than the thrushes as their diet is more exclusively insectivorous. 

 They destroy immense quantities of small leaf -eating larvae and plant lice. 

 I have also watched a Ruby-crowned kinglet during the spring migration 

 swallow 137 scale insects in two minutes from the branch of a garden tree 

 which was afflicted by these pests. There can be no doubt that like the 

 Wood warblers they render invaluable service by destroying the scales 

 and plant lice which are just beginning their season's operations at the time 

 of the spring migration, when both the kinglets and the warblers frequent 

 our gardens and orchards in large numbers. 



Regulus satrapa satrapa Lichtenstein 

 Golden-crowned Kinglet 



Plate 104 



Regulus satrapa Lichtenstein. Verz. Doubl. 1823. 35 



DeKay. Zool. N. Y. 1844. pt 2, p. 62, fig. 95 

 Regulus satrapa satrapa A. O. U. Check List. Ed. 3. 1910. p. 356. 

 No. 748 



regulus, Lat., little king; satrapa, Lat., ruler 



Description. Upper parts grayish olive green; wings and tail feathers 

 edged with yellowish; the inner wing feathers with whitish streaks; middle 

 and greater wing coverts tipped with whitish forming 2 wing bars; crown 



