The Ruby-Crowned Kinglet {Reguius calendula) 



By W. Leon Dawson 



Length, about 4j4 inches. Ohve green above, soiled whitish below, concealed 

 feathers on head (crest) bright red. 



Range : Breeds in southern Canada, southern Alaska, and the higher moun- 

 tains of the western United States; winters in much of the United States and 

 south to Guatemala. 



Habits and economic status : In habits and haunts this tiny sprite resembles 

 a chickadee. It is an active, nervous little creature, fitting hither and yon in 

 search of food, and in spring stopping only long enough to utter its beautiful 

 song, surprisingly loud for the size of the musician. Three-fourths of its food 

 consists of wasps, bugs, and flies. Beetles are the only other item of importance 

 (12 per cent). The bugs eaten by the kinglet are mostly small, but, happily, they 

 are the most harmful kinds. Treehoppers, leafhoppers, and jumping plant lice 

 are pests and often do great harm to trees and smaller plants, while plant lice 

 and scale insects are the worst scourges of the fruit grower — in fact, the preva- 

 lence of the latter has almost risen to the magnitude of a national peril. It is 

 these small and seemingly insignificant birds that most successfully attack and 

 hold in check these insidious foes of horticulture. The vegetable food consists 

 of seeds of poison ivy, or poison oak, a few weed seeds, and a few small fruits, 

 mostly elderberries. 



Surely there is no one who can meet this dainty monarch in one of his 

 happy moods without paying instant homage. His imperium is that of the spirit, 

 and those who boast a soul above the clod must swear fealty to this most delicate 

 expression of the creative Infinite, this thought of God made luminous and vocal, 

 and own him king by right divine. 



It was only yesterday I saw him, Easter day. The significant dawn was 

 struggling with great masses of heaped-up clouds, the incredulities and fears of 

 the world's night; but now and again the invincible sun found some tiny rift 

 and poured a flood of tender gold upon a favored spot where stood some solitary 

 tree or expectant sylvan company. Along the river bank all was still. There 

 were no signs of spring save for the modest springing violet and the pious buck- 

 eye, shaking its late-prisoned fronds to the morning air, and tidily setting in 

 order its manifold array of Easter candles. The oak trees were gray and 

 hushed, and the swamp elms held their peace until the fortunes of the morning 

 should be decided. Suddenly from down the riverpath there came a tiny burst 

 of angel music, the peerless song of the Ruby-crown. Pure, ethereal, without hint 

 of earthly dross or sadness, came those limpid, swelling notes, the sweetest and 

 the gladdest ever sung — at least by those who have not sufifered. It was not, 

 indeed, the greeting of the earth to the risen Lord, but rather the annunciation 

 of the glorious fact by heaven's own appointed herald. 



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