SYLVIA REGULUS. 323 



sometimes built on the upper side of the branch. I have got 

 them suspended in spruce-firs, from 6 to 20 feet up, in nearly all 

 the woods in the district ; being small and like the colour of the 

 branch it is not easily discovered under the close, horizontal 

 branch. It is a beautiful round, domed structure of tine moss 

 and lichens, interwoven with wool, and so profusely stuffed with 

 small feathers inside as often to hide the small entrance hole. 

 It is 3jf inches diameter outside, and only 1J inside, and 1J 

 deep, and yet, in this tiny hung cradle as many as eleven little 

 kinglets are reared. On May 26th, 1864, I got one at Kenley, 

 under a high spruce branch, with eleven fresh eggs in it, \ inch 

 long by | ; they were light pink, freckled over with darker 

 specks. I have got them on young spruce-firs five feet from the 

 ground. It is an early breeder, sometimes in March. Selby 

 knew of full-fledged young as early as the 22nd of April. On 

 the 20th of February 1878, before they began to pair, I heard 

 their sweet low song, and watched twenty of them flitting about 

 the high spruce-firs at St Fort — it was a beautiful day, at 3 p.m. 

 They paid no heed, although I stood within ten feet of them, 

 being too busy searching for larva? — often clinging by their feet, 

 back downwards, or running up and down the trunks incessantly, 

 like creepers and tits; or flitting about like butterflies in ceaseless, 

 wonderful activity, cheeping constantly like shrew mice the 

 while. On May 31st, 1863, 1 saw a young brood of ten flown — 

 the old ones feeding on a spruce-fir at Kinaldy, and I noticed the 

 young ones also tried to look for insects amongst the branches 

 themselves, sometimes they huddled so close together that I 

 thought they could not fly ; but when I threw up a stone they 

 darted off like a shot. On June 23rd, 1889, I got a nest with 

 ten eggs under a spruce branch, 18 feet high, at Morton's Cover. 

 I had to climb a neighbouring Scotch fir, as the spruce branch 

 stretched too far out, and the nest was only two feet from its 

 extremity. The bird popped out, and I left the e<2gs after counting 

 them. It was a beautiful spherical nest then, with an inch 

 entrance hole ; but when I returned on the 7th of July the 

 young were nearly ripe. They crouched close as 1 looked at them, 

 and would have scrambled off if I had touched their nest, so I 

 slipped down, not wishing to disturb them. When I went back 

 on the 14th they were flown, and the once lovely nest all out of 

 shape by the traffic in feeding so many young birds. When it 

 held the ten tiny eggs, like peas, it was only \\ inches inside, 

 but now the entrance hole was pressed down until the inside was 

 4 inches long by lj — a shapeless fabric, having served its 



