430 NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



afforded by the presence of those formidable insects, though upon what terms 

 of amity this defensive alliance is kept does not appear. 



These Creepers incubate during the months of May, June, and July. On 

 the 4th of May, Mr. Gosse observed one with a bit of " silk-cotton " in her 

 beak, and found the skeleton of the nest just commenced in a bush of the Lan- 

 tana camara. It was evidently to be of dome shape, and so far had been con- 

 structed entirely of silk-cotton. The completed nests are made in the form 

 of a globe, with a small opening below the side. The walls are very thick, 

 composed of dry grasses intermixed irregularly with the down of asclepias. 

 One of these nests was fixed between the twigs of a branch of a Bauhinia 

 projecting over a highway. Another, found towards the end of June, was 

 built in a bush of Lantana, and of the same structure. It contained two 

 eggs, greenish-white, thickly but indefinitely dashed with reddish at the 

 larger end. Mr. Gosse quotes a Mr. Eobinson as giving their dimensions at 

 .44 by .31 of an inch, while his own specimens are much larger than this, 

 measuring .63 by nearly .50. Two eggs of C. flavcola, from Jamaica, in my 

 cabinet, measure, .68 by .51 and .68 by .49 of an inch. In one the ground 

 is a dull white, so generally and thickly covered with minute but confluent 

 dots of reddish-brown as to impart a pinkish tinge to the whole egg. In the 

 other the ground is a dull white, sparingly marked with blotches of brown 

 over about three fourths of its surface, but at the larger end covered with a 

 crown of larger and confluent blotches of subdued purple and dark umber, 

 intermingled with a few lines of a darker hue, almost black. 



Two eggs of C. newtoni, from St. Croix, are of a more rounded-oval shape, 

 and measure .69 by .45 and .65 by .44 of an inch. They have a dull white 

 ground, but this is so uniformly and generally covered with confluent red- 

 dish-brown markings as to be nowhere very distinct. 



The St. Croix species is called the Sugar-Bird in that island, from its habit 

 of entering the curing-houses, through the barred windows, probably attracted 

 thither by the swarms of flies. It is a very familiar species, haunting gar- 

 dens, and often entering houses, and never manifesting any alarm. It keeps 

 in pairs, and breeds from March to August. Mr. Newton states that it builds 

 a domed and often pensile nest, with a small porch, or pent-house roof, over 

 the entrance, generally at the extremity of a leafy bough. The nest is gen- 

 erally very untidy on the outside, and is composed of coarse grass and cot- 

 ton, with feathers on the inside. It deposits its eggs before the completion 

 of the nest, " ratlier to the discomfiture of the oologist, who delays inserting 

 his finger into the structure while he sees one or both of the birds busy with 

 a tuft of grass or cotton in their bills, until at last he finds their eggs already 

 hatched." Mr. Newton observed one instance in which two broods were 

 reared in the same nest, with only an interval of ten days between the time 

 the young left it and the laying of an egg. 



