298 CHAPTERS ON THE NATURAL HISTORY 



in the liuibs of some tall, isolated tree, while ever and anon, first 

 one individual and then another, or even perhaps two or three 

 at a time, will launch listlessly off their perches, and sail silently 

 and obliquely upward into the air, to capture insects upon the 

 wing that they may observe from a few to some fifteen or twenty 

 feet or more from the tree occupied by the flock. This practice 

 they will keep up for an hour or more, and the sight is a very in- 

 teresting one to the beholder. 



Comparatively speaking, we find but few nests of the Cedar 

 bird, owing to the muteness of the species and its habit of flying 

 aw r ay upon the slightest alarm and at a distance watching the in- 

 truder. The latter may even examine either eggs or young with- 

 out the parents coming near, much less exhibiting any concern 

 or distress. 



Frequently in the fall and winter these birds are shot for the 

 market and the table. At this season they are often very fat, 

 and quite as palatable as a Keed bird. They usually fly in dense 

 flocks, and the present writer has killed as many as fifty or sixty 

 at a discharge of a double-barrel gun. 



Wilson, who has written one of the most truthful accounts of 

 the Cedar bird that I have ever had the pleasure of reading, says 

 this "species is also found in Canada, where it is called Eecollect, 

 probably, as Dr. Latham supposes, from the color and appear- 

 ance of its crest resembling the hood of an order of friars of that 

 denomination." It may be also said here that the species bears a 

 variety of different names throughout Mexico, Central America, 

 and the West Indies, in the parts of those countries where the 

 bird is distributed. 



Speaking of the nidification of the cedar birds reminds me of 

 the homes that other of our feathered favorites build for them- 

 selves, and among these I recall the nest that the Wood Thrush 

 builds, and, one afternoon last summer, as the lovely month of 

 May was drawing to a close, I had rambled a half mile or more 

 away from my home, over the low hills of southern Maryland, to 

 a spot where a pair of whip-poor-wills had been observed the 

 evening before, and w r here I was led to believe their eggs might 

 be found. 



The air was balmy to a fault, and the piece of woods I was in, 

 radiant and lovely with all that makes the budding summer so 

 < -lu rming. Chestnuts, maples, gums, and many other beautiful 

 trees were in full and delicate leaf, while beneath mv feet the 



