9 J. 2 Brewster on the Golden-crested Kinglet. [October 



luiniber of eggs in the two layers was not noted. In the second 

 there were five eggs in the lower and fonr in the upper layer. 



All these nests were found by watching the birds while build- 

 ing, a task of no slight difficulty in dense spruce woods where 

 the light was dim, even at noonday, and mosquitoes were so nu- 

 merous as to make it torture to remain still for any considerable 

 length of time. Moreover, the movements of the little architect 

 were erratic and puzzling to the last degree. One moment flut- 

 tering at the end of a branch, her bill filled with a mass of build- 

 in<y material, or tugging at the loose end of a shi'ed of bark or 

 moss, the next hidden from sight among the dense spruce foliage, 

 now flitting rapidly from tree to tree, again dashing back and 

 forth between two adjoining trees, the female would often appear 

 and disappear a dozen times and at as many diflerent places in 

 the course of a minute or two. The chief difficulty, of course, 

 was to make out just when and where she deposited her burden, 

 which often vanished in the most unaccountable way. We 

 finallv found that her almost invariable custom was to approach 

 the nest by short flights and devious courses, and upon reaching 

 it dash in. deposit and arrange her load in from two to four sec- 

 onds., and at once dart ofl' in search of more. When it is consid- 

 ered that the nest, even at a distance of only a few yards, was 

 indistinguishable from hundreds of dark clusters in its own and 

 neighboring trees, and that the bird during her flights to and 

 from it often entered and remained quite as long within several 

 of these clusters as in the nest itself, the difficulties of the case 

 will be better understood. As a matter of fact we did not in a 

 single instance settle the exact position of the prize until we 

 had watched the l)irds for several hours and spent much fruitless 

 time in climbing to the deceptive clusters already mentioned. 



In her flights after building material the female sometimes 

 went a distance of a hundred yards or more, but oftener she con- 

 fined her quest to the trees within a radius of fifty yards or less 

 of the one which concealed the nest. She was invariably fol- 

 lowed closely by the male who, however, did not assist her in 

 any way other than by singing almost incessantly, in an under- 

 tone. In the case of the three nests which we took, and a fourth 

 which we must have been very near to but did not find, the 

 males in evei-y instance first attracted us to the spot where their 

 mates were at work by this peculiar, subdued song. It was often 



