74 NORTH AMEEICAN BIRDS. 



it chiefly occurs in its breeding-season. In Massachusetts it is a winter 

 resident from October until May. In Maine it is met with in spring and 

 fall, chiefly as a migratory visitor ; a few also remain, and probably breed, in 

 the dense Thuja swamps of that State. They are most abundant in April, 

 and again in October. In the vicinity of Calais the Golden-crest is a com- 

 mon summer resident, and, without doubt, breeds there. 



Dr. Woodhouse mentions finding this species in abundance in New Mexico 

 and Texas, associated witli Nuthatches and Titmice. Dr. Cooper found it 

 abundant in Wasliington Territory, particularly in the winter, and ascertained 

 positively that they breed there, by seeing them feeding their young near 

 Puget Sound, in tlie month of August. According to Mr. Ridgway it is 

 much less numerous in the Great Basin than the R. calendula. 



The food of this lively and attractive little bird during the summer months 

 is almost exclusively the smaller winged insects, which it industriously pur- 

 sues amid the highest tree-tops of the forest. At other seasons its habits 

 are more those of the titmice, necessity leading it to ransack the crevices of 

 the bark on the trunks and larger limbs of the forest-trees. It is an expert 

 fly-catcher, taking insects readily upon the wing. 



But little is known with certainty regarding its breeding- habits, and its 

 nest and eggs have not yet been described. Tlie presumption, however, is 

 that it builds a pensile nest, not unlike tlie European congener, and lays 

 small eggs finely sprinkled with buff-colored dots on a white ground, and in 

 size nearly corresponding with tliose of our common Humming-Bird. We 

 must infer that it raises two broods in a season, from the fact that it spends 

 so long a period, from April to October, in its summer abode, and still more 

 because while Mr. Nuttall ibund them feeding their full-fledged young in 

 May, on the Columbia, Dr. Cooper, in the same locality, and Mr. Audubon, 

 in Labrador, observed them doing the same thing in the month of August. 



According to the observations of Mr. J. K. Lord, this species is very com- 

 mon on Vancouver's Island and along the entire boundary line separating 

 Washington Territory from British Columbia, where he met with them at an 

 altitude of six thousand feet. He states" that they build a pensile nest sus- 

 pended from the extreme end of a pine branch, and that they lay from five 

 to seven eggs. Tliese he does not describe. 



Most writers speak of this Kinglet as having no song, its only note 

 being a single chirp. But in this they are certainly greatly in error. With- 

 out having so loud or so powerful a note as the Euby-crown {H. calendula), 

 for its song will admit of no comparison with the wonderful vocal powers 

 of that species, it yet has a quite distinctive and prolonged succession 

 of pleasing notes, which I have heard it pour forth in the midst of the 

 most inclement weather in February almost uninterruptedly, and for quite 

 an interval. 



Bischoft' obtained a large number of this species at Kodiak, and also at 

 Sitka, where it seemed to replace the Euby-crown. 



