WESTERN GOLDEN-CROWNED KINGLET 397 



Egg dates. — California: 8 records, April 9 to June 19. 



Labrador: 3 records, June 8 to June 18. 



New Brunswick: 14 records, May 21 to June 17; 9 records, May 21 

 to May 27. 



Washington: 17 records, April 15 to August 1; 9 records, May 1 

 to May 20, indicating the height of the season. 



REGULUS SATRAPA OLIVACEUS Baird 



WESTERN GOLDEN-CROWNED KINGLET 

 HABITS 



This subspecies occupies a wide breeding range, from the Rocky 

 Mountains to the Pacific coast and from southern Alaska, south of 

 the peninsula, to southern California and northern New Mexico. It 

 differs but slightly in appearance from the eastern bird, being more 

 brightly colored above, more greenish or more olivaceous, and having 

 shorter wings and tail and a more slender bill. It seems to be con- 

 fined, in the breeding season at least, to the coniferous forests of tall 

 firs and Douglas spruce. Samuel F. Rathbun tells me that he finds 

 it an abundant bird throughout western Washington, from the 

 Cascade Mountains to the Pacific, and "from tidewater up to an 

 altitude of 4,500 feet in the mountains." Farther south it breeds 

 at higher elevations as far south as the Boreal Zone extends, as in 

 the San Jacinto Mountains in southern California. In northern 

 New Mexico, according to Mrs. Bailey (1928), it breeds in the Sangre 

 do Cristo Mountains at elevations from 9,800 to 11,500 feet. 



While out with Mr. Rathbun near South Tacoma, Wash., D. E. 

 Brown showed us some attractive country, where he and J. H. Bowles 

 had been most successful in finding the nests of the western golden- 

 crowned kinglet. It was smooth, level land, with a fine parklike 

 growth of firs and cedars scattered about; the two or three local 

 species of firs were the most abundant trees, growing to perfection in 

 the open, where they were well branched down to the ground; the 

 largest firs were magnificent specimens, reminding me of our eastern 

 Norway spruces with their downward-sweeping branches; it is in 

 these larger trees that the kinglets prefer to build their nests in the 

 pendant sprays. 



Aretas A. Saunders tells me that in the mountains of Montana 

 there are three types of forest, spruce, fir, and lodgepole pine, and that 

 the golden-crowned kinglets are confined to the spruce forests and 

 the ruby-crowned kinglets to the Douglas firs. 



Nesting.— Mr. Rathbun (MS.) writes, referring to the vicinity of 

 Seattle: "In its time for nesting this kinglet appears to have quite an 

 extended period. We have seen it carrying material for its nest as 



