138 ORNITHOLOGY AND OOLOGY. 



This bird is a common summer inhabitant of New Eng- 

 land, making its appearance from the South from about the 

 10th to the 20th of May. It prefers the solitudes of 



the deep forests to the more open districts, and is a more 

 retiring species than any of its cousins in these States. 

 About the last of May, the birds, having chosen their mates, 

 commence building. The nest is placed usually on the 

 horizontal limb of a tree, generally at a height of about 

 twenty feet from the ground : it is composed of pine leaves 

 and cottony substances, and covered with lichens and 

 mosses, which are fixed on after the manner of the Hum- 

 ming-bird. I think Nuttall's description of the nest the 

 best that I have seen : it is as follows : 



"The nest is extremely neat and curious, almost universally 

 saddled upon an old moss-grown and decayed limb in a horizontal 

 position, and is so remarkably shallow, and incorporated upon the 

 branch, as to be easily overlooked. The body of the fabric con- 

 sists of wiry grass and root fibres, often blended with small branch- 

 ing lichens, held together with cobwebs and caterpillars' silk, 

 moistened with saliva ; externally, it is so coated over with bluish, 

 crustaceous lichens as to be hardly discernible from the moss 

 upon the tree. It is lined with finer root-fibres, or slender grass- 

 stalks." 



