270 THE RUBY-CROWNED KINGLET. 



cliccp . These emphatic nules are also reiulerecl in a detached form at oc- 

 casional intervals, usually after the entire song has been rehearsed ; and they 

 are so loud at all times as to be heard at a distance of half a mile. One indi- 

 vidual began his song with an elaborate ])reliminar_\- run oi high-pitched, 

 svhining notes of a fineness almost beyond human cognizance : then effected a 

 descent by a kifitan' note to the tciv tczv tew series. In his case, also, the em- 

 phatic closing notes had a distinctly double character, as c/iccpy, cliccpv, cliccpv. 



We ransacked the Newport woods day after day with feverish eagerness, 

 allured and goaded by the music, but filled also with that strange fire of 

 oological madness which will lead its possessor to bridge chasms, dangle over 

 precipices, brave the billows of the sea, battle with eagles on the heights, or 

 crawl on hands and knees all over a forty-acre field. Tlie quest was well-nigh 

 hopeless, for the wooils were dense and the tamaracks were heavily draped 

 in brown moss, "vSpanish beards," with a thousand possibilities of hidden nests 

 to a single tree. June the First was to be the last day f)f our stav, and it 

 opened up with a dense fog emanating from the Pentl d'Oreille Ri\'er hard-l)v. 

 Nevertheless, six o'clock found us ogling thru the mists on the crest of a 

 wooded hill. A Ruby-crown was humming fragmentary snatches of song, 

 and I put the glasses on him. I was watching the flitting sprite with languid 

 interest when Jack exclaimed petulantly, "Now, why won't that bird visit his 

 nest?" "He diil," I replied, lowering the binoculars. The bird in flitting 

 about had paused but an instant near the end of a small fir branch about 

 thirtv-five feet up in a sixty-foot tree, siiringing from the hillside below. 

 There was nothing in the movement nor in the lenglh of time spent to excite 

 suspicion, but it had served to reveal thru the glasses a thickening of the 

 drooping foliage, clearly noticeable as it lay outlined against the fog. 



We returned at ten o'clock and the first strokes of the hand-ax, as the 

 lowermost spike bit into the live wood, sent the female flying fmni the nest 

 into a neighboring tree. As the ascent was made spike by spike, site uttered 

 a ra]jid complaint, composed of notes similar to the ]")refatory notes of the 

 male's song: but dtu"ing m\- entire stay aloft she did not \cnture back into the 

 nesting tree, nor did the male once put in an appearance. The nest was only 

 five and a half feet out from the tree trunk, and the containing branch an 

 inch in thickness at the base. Hence, it was not a difficult, albeit an anxious, 

 task to support the limb midwa\' with one hand and to sever it with a ])ocket- 

 knife held in the other, then to haul it in slowly. 



The nest was composed largeh- of the droojiing brown moss, so common 

 in this region as to be almost a necessity, yet contrasting strongly with the 

 clean bright green of the young fir tree. But, even so, it was so thoroly con- 

 cealed b\- the draping foliage that its ])resence would have escaped notice 

 from any attainable standpoint, sa\-e for the mere density, — a shade thicker 

 than elsewhere. At first sight one is tem])ted to call it a moss-ljall. but close 



