140 CEDAR-BIRD. 



and it is generally the eighth or tenth of that month before 

 they begin to build. These last are curious circumstances, which 

 it is difficult to account for, unless by supposing, that incubation 

 is retarded by a scarcity of suitable food in spring; berries and 

 other fruit being their usual fare. In May, before the cherries 

 are ripe, they are lean, and little else is found in their stomachs 

 than a few shrivelled cedar berries, the refuse of the former 

 season, and a few fragments of beetles and other insects, which 

 do not appear to be their common food; but in June, while cherries 

 and strawberries abound, they become extremely fat; and about 

 the tenth or twelfth of that month, disperse over the country in 

 pairs to breed; sometimes fixing on the cedar, but generally choos- 

 ing the orchard for that purpose. The nest is large for the size of 

 the bird, fixed in the forked or horizontal branch of an apple tree, 

 ten or twelve feet from the ground; outwardly, and at bottom, 

 is laid a mass of coarse dry stalks of grass, and the inside is lined 

 wholly with very fine stalks of the same material. The eggs are 

 three or four, of a dingy bluish white, thick at the great end, ta- 

 pering suddenly, and becoming very narrow at the other; marked 

 with small roundish spots of black of various sizes and shades; 

 and the great end is of a pale dull purple tinge, marked likewise 

 with touches of various shades of purple and black. About the last 

 week in June the young are hatched, and are at first fed on in- 

 sects and their larvae; but as they advance in growth, on berries 

 of various kinds. These facts I have myself been an eye witness 

 to. The female, if disturbed, darts from the nest in silence to a 

 considerable distance; no notes of wailing or lamentation are 

 heard from either parent, nor are they even seen, notwithstand- 

 ing you are in the tree examining the nest and young. These 

 nests are less frequently found than many others; owing, not 

 only to the comparatively few numbers of the birds, but to the 

 remarkable muteness of the species. The season of love, which 

 makes almost every other small bird musical, has no such effect 

 on them; for they continue at that interesting period as silent 

 as before. 



