614 THE BIRDS OF MAINE 



northern states northward ; wintering from the northern United States to 

 Guatemala. 



County Records. — Androscoggin; common winter resident, (Johnson). 

 Aroostook; common resident, but less frequent in winter, (Knight). Cum- 

 berland ; properly a summer resident, suspect a few remain through winter, 

 abundant in migrations, (Brown, C. B. P. p. 5) ; common winter migrant, 

 (Mead). Franklin; common migrant, (Swain); common resident, (Sweet). 

 Hancock ; common resident, (Knight). Kennebec ; very rare winter resident, 

 (Powers). Knox; resident, (Rackliff). Oxford; common, (Nash). Penob- 

 scot; common in summer, breeds, abundant in migrations, sporadic in winter, 

 (Knight). Piscataquis; resident, (Whitman). Sagadahoc; migrant, common 

 in fall of 1896, (Spinney). Somerset; common, a frequent summer resident, 

 (Morrell); common summer resident of the northern wilds, (Knight). Waldo ; 

 common summer resident, frequent in fall and spring, fairly common in 

 winter, (Knight). Washington ; quite common, a few winter, rarely breeds, 

 (Boardman). York; not common migrant, (Adams). 



This is a generally distributed and common resident species 

 throughout the State, and though most generally noticed in 

 fall and spring there is not a county in the State in which 

 careful search will not reveal the species at any time of the 

 year, though in winter the species is harder to find because at 

 that season they occur in small roving flocks and in the more 

 sheltered, warmer localities where food is plentiful. At all 

 seasons their chief preference is for the evergreen woods and 

 groves. Pine, fir, spruce and hemlock woods, or mixed growth 

 in which these trees predominate are their preference. Occa- 

 sionally they venture into the orchards in fall and are fairly 

 often found in white birch woods, but to be sure of finding 

 them one must seek in the evergreens. Here they feed on the 

 insects and insects' eggs carefully gleaned from the foliage and 

 branches, while an occasional insect is sallied after and caught 

 on the wing. 



In the nesting season an occasional pair will nest in a small 

 grove where there are scarcely a dozen trees of pine or other 

 evergreen, but to be sure of finding them nesting they must be 

 sought in the deeper more extensive woods. Here they might 

 nest by the dozen unobserved and undetectable, were it not 

 for the very characteristic song uttered by the male. He 



