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180 ORNITHOLOGY AND OOLOGY. 
beneath it, white; exterior of the crown before and laterally black, embracing a 
central patch of orange-red, encircled by gamboge-yellow; a dusky space around 
the eye; wing coverts with two yellowish-white bands, the posterior covering, a 
similar band on the quills, succeeded by a broad dusky one; under parts dull 
whitish. 
The black of the head immediately succeeds the white frontal band as one of 
about the same width, passing behind on each side. Generally the white line over 
the eye is separated from the white forehead by a dusky lore. There is also a 
dusky space beneath the whitish under the eye. The yellow of the crown 
generally overlies and conceals the orange. The orange is wanting in the fe- 
male. The young birds always appear to have at least the yellow and black of the 
crown. 
Length, under four inches; wing, two and twenty-five one-hundredths inches; 
tail, one and eighty one-hundredths inches. 
This handsome and active species is also a common bird, 
coming to us from the North the last of September, but, 
unlike the preceding, braving the rigors of our winter; 
and it leaves again by the 15th of April. Numbers, how- 
ever, winter farther south; and it is in spring and autumn 
that the species is most abundant. On their arrival in 
autumn, they frequent orchard trees, feeding among the 
leaves of the apple-trees, which, at this season, are infested 
with insects. Later, and in winter, they resort more often 
to the evergreens, —such as the pine, spruce, and cedar, 
but rove wherever they can find food, generally in company 
with the Chickadees, and occasionally the White-breasted 
Nuthatch, Brown Creeper, and Downy Woodpecker; the 
whole forming a lively, busy winter party, as they perambu- 
late the country, intent on gathering their now scanty food. 
Their call-note at this season, indeed the only note that I 
have heard at any time, is a faint pipe or whistle, sounded 
quickly three or four times. I have never heard this bird 
utter the querulous note assigned to it by Audubon and 
Nuttall, but have often heard the Ruby Crown give this 
strain. In spring, having similar habits and diet with the 
Ruby Crowns, they frequent the same hunting-grounds, and 
are seen hanging to the extremities of twigs, head down- 
wards, and sometimes fluttering in the air in front of them, 
seizing small flies, ‘‘ and often exposing the golden feathers 
