38 Twelve Months With 



ily). To the east, across the bridge, is a high 

 wire fence, with a wooden cornice, the whole 

 covered with vines, which at this time were 

 still bare and brown. In. one of the angles of the 

 cornice, and partially concealed by the dark vines, 

 I noticed a robin building a nest. A few feet 

 farther I turned into a street bordering the woods 

 and leading into them, and in the front yard of a 

 vacant house saw, among the bare shrubbery, a 

 kinglet (a small king!), pluming his feathers, as 

 if he had just taken his morning's bath and was 

 making his toilet for the day. Watching him 

 carefully as he fluttered and turned about, I 

 caught sight of the tuft of bright red feathers 

 on the crown of his head, which marked him as 

 the ruby-crown, and then, his toilet finished, he 

 poured forth his joy in the finest little soft and 

 yet distinct wren-like song that it has ever been 

 my good fortune to hear. The kinglet's song, 

 while clear and distinct at close range, is not loud, 

 and cannot be heard at any considerable distance. 

 And, again, these little birds are usually so busy 

 hopping about the lower trunks of trees and among 

 the lower branches, feeding, that they apparently 

 have little time for singing. The small, wren-like, 

 olive-green bodies of the ruby-crowned and golden- 

 crowned kinglets are very similar in appearance, 

 and sometimes they are not easily distinguished, 

 except by the bright markings on the crown, which 

 give them their respective names, although the 

 golden-crowned is somewhat smaller. The names 



