SMALL BIRD TALK 517 



no fair, tender-hearted lady was there to demand 

 the lives of the parent birds, that she might have 

 their poor upholstered skins with which to decorate 

 her hat and add two more lives to the 200,000,000 

 wild birds brutally murdered for that purpose each 

 year. 



A ruby-crowned kinglet was unfamiliar to 

 me; that is, I only knew it from my books, 

 and it was from Chapman's description that 

 I identified the little fellow. Chapman says that 

 the male bird has upon its crown a partly concealed 

 crest of bright red. This bird had that sort of a 

 crest. The rest of the upper parts are of a gray, 

 olive green, brighter on the rump. This descrip- 

 tion also fits my bird and so does the rest of the 

 description, down to the two whitish wing bars 

 and slightly forked tail. Chapman also says of 

 the nest that it is usually semipensile, of moss, fine 

 strips of bark, neatly interwoven and lined with 

 feathers. This agrees practically with the nest in 

 the alder bush, although it had more small roots 

 than bark, and inside were a few horsehairs. His 

 description of the eggs, as dull whitish or pale 

 buffy, faintly speckled and spotted with pale brown 

 describes the eggs in the nest on the alder bush, 

 but there were but four eggs in this nest, and 

 from all accounts I think it must be unusual for 

 the ruby-crowned kinglet to build in low bushes 

 overhanging the water. 



A word respecting the nest-robbing habits of 

 some birds. It is my opinion that any insect-eating 



