142 BIRDS THROUGH AN OPERA-GLASS. 
they adopt the tints of the vireos, though they are 
as little like them as the fluffy chickadee is like 
the waxwing in build or temperament. The vireos 
walk sedately down the length of a branch, calmly 
turning their heads on one side to peer under the 
leaves for their measure-worm ; but the kinglets! 
—clambering up a limb, turning from one side 
to the other, with one big eye always close to the 
bark staring for insects; fluttering under a twig 
like a humming-bird, and then catching hold up- 
side down to pick off an insect; flitting about 
from branch to branch; stopping a moment to 
eye me inquisitively, and then hurrying on with 
their work — the restless pigmies seemed most 
unvireo like. 
At the end of two weeks I had seen no kinglet 
crown of any kind. But one day I had a surprise. 
Hearing a faint note from a Norway spruce I 
looked up and saw a kinglet, but — what was it? 
Instead of being one of my gnomes, he was the 
most human, every-day sort of a bird, with a 
naive interrogative air that might have argued 
him an American. Then his tiny, stubby bill 
stuck out from his big head with such a pert, 
business-like air it gave my idea of kinglets an- 
other shock. What was he? Could I have been 
wholly mistaken? Was my elf no kinglet at all 
—was this the kinglet? Such a crown! I had 
comforted myself for my gnome’s lack of crown 
by thinking that it was concealed like the king- 
