FAMILY Ampclidi 



ish tint lower down. Female similarly marked. Nest 

 built in some tree usually near the house (not infre- 

 quently a fruit-tree), bulky, and woven with grasses, 

 bark, twigs, moss, and rootlets, sometimes with a basis 

 of mud; the lining of similar but finer material. Egg 

 purplish or bluish gray variously spotted with umber or 

 l>l;irk. The breeding season is late about early July. 

 The birds range throughout North America, breeding 

 from Virginia northward, and among the Alleghany 

 Mountains south to South Carolina; they winter from 

 the northern United States to northern South America. 

 They are characteristic wanderers Mr. Scott calls them 

 gypsies who come and go in squads of six or seven, or 

 more, regardless of migration periods. Their quiet un- 

 obtrusiveness, their silence, their gentle manners and re- 

 fined appearance always make them peculiarly attractive 

 to the bird-lover, in spite of the fact that they have an 

 unfortunate reputation for being over-fond of cherries. 

 But I think Mr. F. E. L. Beal has proved that this is an 

 onus of unjust opinion saddled upon a bird of generally 

 beneficent habits. He says: " much complaint has been 

 made on account of the fruit eaten. Observation has 

 shown, however, that the depredations are confined to 

 trees on which the fruit ripens earliest, while later varie- 

 ties are comparatively untouched. This is probably owing 

 to the fact that when wild fruits ripen they are preferred 

 to cherries, and really constitute the bulk of the Cedar- 

 bird's diet. In one hundred and fifty-two stomachs ex- 

 amined, animal matter formed only thirteen and vegetable 

 eighty-seven per cent., showing that the bird was not 

 wholly a fruit eater. ... Of the eighty-seven per 

 cent, of vegetable food, seventy-four consisted entirely 

 of wild fruit or seeds, and thirteen of cultivated fruit, 

 but a large part of the latter was made up of black- 

 berries and raspberries, and it is very doubtful whether 

 these represented cultivated varieties. Cherry-stealing 

 is the chief complaint against this bird, but of the one 

 hundred and fifty -two stomachs only nine, all taken in 

 June and July, contained any remains of cultivated 

 cherries, and these would aggregate but five per cent, 

 of the year's food." 



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