lives at so great an elevation above the ground except those forms which are 

 partial to coniferous trees. The peculiar song ends in a little screech. 



Sometimes these birds nest in small colonies. Like the cedar waxing and 

 dickcissel they are irregular residents, breeding in some parts during certain years 

 and perhaps they are not seen again in the same locality for several seasons. 



Their manner of nest-building is unique, as they are partial to trees wliich 

 are draped with usnea moss. Among the hanging festoons of this "Spanish moss" 

 the little birds construct a cavity into which they carry soft vegetable substances 

 such as thistle-down and the "cotton" of the cottonwood. The nests are difficult 

 to detect unless one is fortunate enough to observe the birds when they are entering 

 these long appendages. Usually four white delicately wreathed eggs are laid in 

 May. 



Neltje Blanchan has most charmingly written ahuut this dainty liird. She 

 says : "A number of such aii-y, tiny beauties flitting about among the lilossoms of 

 the shrubbery on a bright May morning and swaying on the slenderest branches 

 with their inimitable grace, is a sight that the memory should retain into old age. 

 They seem the very embodiment of life, joy, beauty, grace ; of everything lovely 

 that birds by any possibility could be. Apparently they are wafted about the 

 garden; they fly with no more efifort than a dainty lifting of the wings, as if to 

 catch the breeze that seems to lift them as it might a bunch of thistledown. They 

 go through a great variety of charming posturings as they hunt for their food 

 upon the blossoms and tender, fresh twigs, now creeping like a nuthatch along 

 the bark and peering into the crevices, now gracefully swaying and balancing like 

 a goldfinch upon a slender, pendant stem. One little sprite pauses in its hunt for 

 insects to raise its pretty head and thrill a short and wiry song." 



Hither the busy birds shall flutter. 



With the light timber for their nests. 

 And, pausing from their labor, utter 



The morning sunshine in tiieir breasts. 



— James Russell Lowell. 



535 



