36 Bird Portraits 
the whole company move to the spruce forests of the North, not 
to return to us until the next September. 
In the Northern States, the Golden-crowned Kinglet is the only 
species that remains all winter, but from Virginia southward its 
cousin, the Ruby-crowned Kinglet, is associated with it; in summer, 
strange to say, the more Southern winter species goes farther North 
than the Golden-crowned, breeding from northern Maine to the frigid 
zone. A few years ago, no eggs or nest of either Kinglet had been 
described, but when they were at last discovered, they proved as 
dainty as the little builders themselves. The nest is globular, with 
an entrance in the upper part; it is placed in a thick mass of spruce 
twigs and composed of hanging moss, ornamented with bits of dead 
leaves, and lined chiefly with feathers. In such a nest, as many as 
nine eggs are often laid; imagine the little Golden-crown brooding 
in this bower. 
Like some of the Warbler family, the Kinglet does not let an 
insect escape, though it should take wing before it could be seized. 
The bird, too, has wings, and darts out after its prey. In winter, it 
often hovers under the piazza roofs, or the lintels of the barn door, 
and while in the air, picks off the eggs or chrysalids that have 
been hidden in the crevices. Occasionally one of the birds, in its 
eagerness to seize some attractive morsel, flies sharply against a 
windowpane. No doubt it is the part of a thrifty householder to 
sweep out the insects from his piazza roof, but there are some, like 
Lowell, wise enough to leave a few decayed limbs on their apple 
trees for the Woodpeckers, a patch or so of weeds for the Snowbirds, 
and a chrysalis or two for the hungry Kinglets in winter. 
