284 SINGING BIRDS. 



the habits. They are actively engaged during their transient 

 visits to the South in gleaning up insects and their lurking 

 larvae, for which they perambulate the branches of trees of 

 various kinds, frequenting gardens and orchards, and skipping 

 and vaulting from the twigs, sometimes head downwards like 

 the Chick^idee, with whom they often keep company, making 

 only now and then a feeble chirp. They appear at this time 

 to search chiefly after spiders and dormant concealed coleop- 

 terous or shelly insects ; they are also said to feed on small 

 berries and some kinds of seeds, which they break open by 

 pecking with the bill in the manner of the Titmouse. They 

 hkewise frequent the sheltered cedar and pine woods, in which 

 they probably take up their roost at night. Early in April 

 they are seen on their return to the North in Pennsylvania ; at 

 this time they dart among the blossoms of the maple and elm 

 in company with the preceding species, and appear more vola- 

 tile and actively engaged in seizing small flies on the wing, and 

 collecting minute, lurking caterpillars from the opening leaves. 

 On the 2ist of May, 1835, I observed this species feeding 

 its full-fledged young in a tall pine-tree on the banks of the 

 Columbia River. 



The range of this species is now set down as " Eastern North 

 America, breeding from the northern border of the United States 

 northward and southward along the Rockies and the Alleghanies; 

 wintering south to Guatemala.'' Until quite recently it was sup- 

 posed to be a migrant through Massachusetts, wintering in small 

 numbers, but has been discovered breeding in both Berkshire and 

 Worcester counties. It is a resident of the settled portion of 

 Canada, though not common west of the Georgian Bay, and rarely 

 breeding south of latitude 45°. 



The song is a rather simple " twittered warble," shrill and high- 

 pitched. 



