56 LAND-BIRDS AND GAME-BIRDS 
Latham.!? I therefore have the honor of recording the discoy- 
ery of the nest of the Golden-crowned ‘* Wren,” which I made 
this summer, on the sixteenth day of July, in a forest of the 
White Mountains, which consisted chiefly of evergreens and 
white birches. Having several times observed the bird there, 
I at last detected them in the act of conveying food to their 
young, and soon tracked them to their nest. This hung four 
feet above the ground, from a spreading hemlock-bough, to the 
twigs of which it was firmly fastened; it was globular, with 
an entrance in the upper part, and was composed of hanging 
moss, ornamented with bits of dead leaves, and lined chiefly 
with feathers. It contained six young birds, but much to my 
regret no eggs. 
(c). The Golden-crowned ‘* Wrens” come to Massachusetts 
from their summer-homes in the latter part of October or in 
November, and, though a majority of them move on to the 
South, many pass the winter here, and continue their residence 
in this State until April or even the second week of May. 
During the winter they are for the most part gregarious, and 
may often be seen in small flocks, moving about among trees ; 
more often among those (such as birches) which spring up be- 
side wood-paths than those growing elsewhere. But they also 
visit cultivated lands and orchards, generally avoiding ever- 
greens (so far as I have observed), probably, because they do 
not readily find among them, in cold weather, the small insects 
and their eggs, which infest the bark of other trees, and upon 
which they chiefly depend for food.!8 I have always found them 
more abundant on the edges of lanes through our woods than in 
other places, and there one may watch them scrambling about 
from twig to twig and from tree to tree, so busily engaged as 
to almost ignore one’s immediate presence. They are not quite 
so restless as the Ruby-crowned ‘* Wrens,” but are equally so- 
12“ American Ornithology,” Vol. I, p. 127. 
13 The nuthatches, creepers, and titmice, all affect the pines in winter, and there- 
fore I am at a loss to explain the apparent dislike of these birds to those trees in 
that season. About the fact I do not think myself mistaken. They share the 
Chickadee’s partiality for white birches. 
