On the Trail of Pokagon 63 



but with all my searching I had never been able to find one 

 after Thanksgiving Day. The bird is the smallest of the 

 feathered kingdom barring only the ruby-throated hummer. 



There is an interest that attaches to the kinglet aside from 

 its beauty and its cheerful habit of life. Aristotle knew and 

 named this bird more than three centuries before Christ. The 

 Greek philosopher was probably the first bird student. He 

 certainly was the first whose books have come to us. 

 Aristotle made all sorts of curious mistakes, but we must 

 honor him as a pioneer. He met the little kinglet with its 

 golden crown and named it Tyrannos, the tyrant. He so 

 named it from its golden crown of royalty which then as 

 to-day was too often synonymous with tyranny. The bird 

 retains the name in the form of kinglet, as it retains the 

 golden crown until this day. The most interesting study of 

 Aristotle's treatise on birds has been given us by W. Warde 

 Fowler, in his "Summer Studies of Birds and Books." The 

 Michigan kinglets were "t-zeeing, t-zeeing, " energetically all 

 the while that they were picking grubs out of the bark. I 

 don't think that I ever ran across a silent golden-crowned 

 kinglet. Their utterance is not loud but it is constant, and 

 as they are always picking up food I am afraid that the 

 otherwise well-mannered little king is open to the reproach of 

 talking with his mouth full. 



It is curious that on one shore of Lake Michigan birds 

 should be abundant in winter which on the opposite shore 

 are accounted rare. I have said that the Michigan kinglets 

 were my first winter birds of the kind. The white-breasted 

 nuthatches that I met on that trip to Pokagon's home were 

 also the first birds of their kind that I had seen in the winter 

 months. The nuthatches certainly winter in northern Illi- 



