January 
disturbs their equanimity and drives them to 
shelter fully as much as intense cold. With no 
other occupation than their precarious purvey- 
ance, and amid the most cheerless surround- 
ings, if they were obliged to ‘Azz all winter, 
it would indeed be a most tedious and disheart- 
ening experience for them. Probably no mere 
animal has any of a human being’s sense of the 
lapse of time, for which they cannot be too 
profoundly grateful. 
One of the daintiest species to be found in 
the woods at this season, a spark of vital warmth 
in the surrounding cold, is the golden-crowned 
kinglet, also called golden-crowned wren, or 
‘¢ gold-crest.’’ This little creature is less than 
five inches long (a bird’s length being meas- 
ured from the tip of the bill to the end of the 
tail), and its head is beautifully marked with 
two black stripes enclosing a yellow stripe 
which in the mature male has a scarlet centre. 
The rest of the body is in the main greenish 
olive above, and an impure white beneath. It 
is impossible to get a good view of all these 
points at once, as he is in almost perpetual 
motion, nimbly hopping from spot to spot in 
the bushes and trees, and fluttering his wings. 
His food at this season is chiefly the larve of 
35 
