266 THE WESTERN GOLDEN-CROWNED KINGLET. 
color from pure white to sordid white and dusky brown. In the last two cases 
the tint may be due to a profusion of fine brown dots, or to advancement in 
incubation, the shell being so thin that the progressive stages of the chick’s 
development are dimly shadowed thru it. 
The female Kinglet is a close sitter and will not often leave the nest until 
the containing branch is sharply tapped. Then, invariably, she drops down a 
couple of feet and flits sharply sidewise, with manifest intent to deceive the 
laggard eye. Yet almost immediately she is-minded to return, and will do so 
if there is no further demonstration of hostilities. Re-covering the eggs is not 
always an easy matter, for the well is deep and the mouth narrow. One dame 
lighted on the brim of her nest and bowed and scraped and stamped, precisely 
as a carefully disciplined husband will when he brings muddy boots to the 
kitchen door. The operation was evidently quite unconnected with hesitation 
in view of my presence, but in some way was preparatory to her sinking 
carefully into the feather-lined pit before her. When she first covered the 
eggs, also, there was a great fuss made in settling, as tho to free her feathers 
from the engaging edges of the nest. When the bird is well down upon her 
eges there is nothing visible but the top of her head and the tip of her tail. 
The male bird, meanwhile, is not indifferent. First he bustles up onto 
the nesting branch and flashes his fiery crest in plain token of anger, but 
’ later he is content 
to squeak disapproy- 
at from a_ position 
more removed. 
While the mother 
bird is sitting, the 
male tends her faith- 
fully, but he spends 
his spare moments, 
according to Mr. 
Bowles, in construct- 
ing “‘cock nests,” or 
decoys, in the neigh- 
Taken near Tacoma. boring trees. These 
Photosby ithe Suslicr<- Se eiiltOuSehyermorp iia 
NID - NID - NODDING. pose beyond that of 
a nervous relief to 
the impatient father, and are seldom as carefully constructed as the veritable 
domus. 
When the young of the first brood are hatched and ready to fly, the 
chief care of them falls to the father, while the female prepares for a second 
nesting. As to the further domestic relations one cannot speak with certainty, 
