338 Brewster 07i the Golden-crested Kinglet. [October 



at work on the lining, the exterior being apparently completed, 

 and was taken June 29, with a set of nine eggs, four perfectly 

 fresh, the others slightly incubated. It was placed in a tall, 

 slender spruce {^A. ni^ra)., on the south side, within about two 

 feet of the top of the tree, and at least sixty feet above the ground, 

 suspended among fine pendant twigs about two inches directly 

 below a short horizontal branch, some twelve inches out from 

 the main stem, and an equal distance from the end of the branch. 

 The tree stood near the upper edge of a narrow strip of dry, 

 rather open woods bordered on one side by a road, on the other 

 by an extensive sphagnum swamp, the growth both in the swamp 

 and along its edges being almost exclusively spruces {A. 7iigra) 

 and balsams (^A. balsa7nifera) . 



The nest measures externally: greatest depth, 3.60; least 

 depth, 2.70 ; greatest diameter, 4.20 ; least diameter, 3.00 inches. 

 Two measurements are required for each dimension because of 

 the irregularity of the external outline. This although generally 

 rounded is broken in places by deep depressions and prominent 

 knobs or excrescences. The top of the nest is open, but the rim 

 is slightly contracted or arched on every side over the deep hol- 

 low which contained the eggs. The extent of this contraction is 

 best shown by the following measurements of the interior cav- 

 ity : diameter at top, 1.15 x 1.95 inches; diameter midway be- 

 tween top and bottom, 1.40 X 2.10. The cavity is oblong, not 

 round. The walls vary in thickness from 1.35 to .40. Out- 

 wardly they are composed chiefly of green mosses* prettily diver- 

 sified with grayish lichens and Ustiea, the general tone of the col- 

 oring, however, matching closely that of the surrounding spruce 

 foliage. The interior at the bottom is lined with exceedingly deli- 

 cate strips of soft inner bark and fine black rootlets similar to, if 

 not identical with, those which almost invariably form the lining of 

 the nest of the Black-and-yellow Warbler. Near the top are rather 

 numerous feathers of the Ruffed Grouse, Hermit Thrush, and 

 Oven-bird, arranged with the points of the quills down, the tips 

 rising to, or slightly above, the rim and arching inward over the 

 cavity, forming a screen that partially concealed the eggs. 



* These have been identified by a botanist as representing five species of 

 Hypnum and one of Frullania. 



