S2 BIRDS OF NEW ENGLAND AND EASTERN NEW YORK 



April. In northern New England it is not common in win- 

 ter. Kinglets are often associated in winter with Chicka- 

 dees ; if, therefore, the sharp tsit of the Chickadee is heard 



in fall or winter, it is well to follow the 

 sound and, when the Chickadees appear, 

 to keep eye and ear alert for any of 

 their traveling companions. Often the 

 Kinglets travel alone, searching restlessly 



the twigs of trees and hedges, following 

 Fig. 2. Golden- , ^ ,, i , .-, f 



crowned Kinglet perhaps a well-marked course through 



plantations and woodland, and calling to 

 each other with a thin sharp see-see-see. If the birds are 

 in thick evergreens, spruces or cedars, it is very hard to 

 get even a glimpse of them, but in leafless apple-trees, a 

 favorite resort, they display their brightly marked heads 

 and quick, restless ways. They do not cling to a twig 

 upside down like the Chickadees, but occasionally one flut- 

 ters for an instant before the desired morsel and picks it 

 off. Their numbers vary from winter to winter, and even 

 in the course of a single season there seems often to be 

 a fluctuation. In April their numbers increase, as the birds 

 that have wintered to the southward pass through as mi- 

 grants. In March and April the males continue the lisping 

 note, put more and more power into it, and then by a de- 

 scending trill fall, as it were, from the height to which 

 they have scaled, — this is the song of the Golden-crowned 

 Kinglet. The lisp of the Chickadee, the screej) of the 

 Brown Creeper, and the see-see-see of the Kinglet all have 

 a strong resemblance. The last two are sharper and more 

 finely drawn out, the Kinglet's is quickly repeated, while 

 the Creeper's is one long continuous note. 



In summer the Kinglets keep almost wholly in the 

 spruces, and are thus even more inconspicuous than in win- 

 ter ; their song and call-notes, however, make their presence 

 known. Their call is now often longer and still more like 



