2 74 



Hints to Audubon Workers. 



about two weeks, working industriously all 

 the while — dear little brownies — to clear 

 our mountain ashes and apple trees of in- 

 sects before leaving us. I came to know 

 them as far off as I could see them, by the 

 restless way they had of lifting their wings, 

 twinkling them in the air, as they hunted 

 about the branches. And how they did 

 hunt! Clambering up a limb, turning from 

 one side to the other, with one big eye 

 close to the bark looking out for insects; 

 fluttering under a twig like a humming- 

 bird, and then catching hold upside down 

 to pick off their victim; flitting about from 

 branch to branch; stopping a moment to 

 eye me inquisitively, and then hurrying on 

 with their work — the pigmies were never 

 idle. 



At the end of two weeks I had seen no 

 crown of any kind. But one day I had a 

 surprise. Hearing a little note from a 

 Norway spruce, I looked up and saw a 

 kinglet, but — what was it? Instead of being 

 one of my gnomes, he was the most 

 human, every-day sort of a bird, with a 

 naive interrogative air that might have 

 argued him an American. Then his tiny, 

 stubby bill stuck out from his big head so 

 as to give him a pert, business-like air that 

 gave my idea of kinglets another shock. 

 What was he? Could I have been wholly 

 mistaken? Was my elf no kinglet at all — 

 was this the kinglet? Such a crown! I 

 had comforted myself for my gnome's lack 

 of crown by thinking that it was concealed 

 like the kingbird's, but here — how could 

 such a crown as this ever have been hid- 

 den? Why, the black lines came down to 

 his absurd little bill, and the gold between 

 them was plain enough to be seen almost 

 as far off as he himself. I came in bewil- 

 dered enough, but the moment I saw De 

 Kay's plates I understood it all. This 

 was the golden-crowned, and my pigmies 

 were the ruby-crowned kinglets. After that, 

 the two were here together in great num- 

 bers for two weeks, when the ruby left as 



he had come, two weeks in advance of the 

 golden. 



When they were both here, I used to go 

 out and stand under the apple trees to 

 watch them. Sometimes there must have 

 been twenty in one tree. They were very 

 tame, but rarely found time to look at me. 

 Seen together, the golden is appreciably the 

 smaller; his legs look shorter, and he is not 

 so plump — appears more like an ordinary 

 bird. His back is grayer than the ruby's, 

 and when his wings are crossed on his 

 back you get an effect of bars near the 

 tips. Mr. Golden-crown has a concealed 

 patch of cadmium orange in the center of 

 his crown, but his wife is content with the 

 plain gold, and the children often show 

 neither black nor gold. All the goldens 

 seemed to have less of the wild bluebird 

 habit of lifting their wings when lit, but 

 they hang upside down even more than the 

 rubies, often flying up from one spray to 

 light upside down on the one above. The 

 goldens had a business-like way of getting 

 under a leaf and picking off the insects one 

 after another as fast as their tiny bills 

 could work. Their song is said to be in- 

 ferior to that of the rubies, which is con- 

 sidered a ten-days' wonder, coming from 

 such a tiny bird. 



Before the rubies left I surprised one of 

 them into raising his beautiful scarlet crown. 

 The goldens, being the hardier of the two, 

 not only winter further north, but this fall 

 stayed here through our first snows, long 

 after the rubies had left. One day, when 

 there were several inches of snow on the 

 ground, two of them followed the lead of a 

 winter wren, and when I opened the front 

 door, flew off from a bunch of mountain 

 ash berries that hung on the piazza! 



The nest of both the kinglets is often 

 pensile, being hung from the tip of an 

 evergreen branch. It is said to be a "ball- 

 like mass of green moss, lined with hair 

 and soft feathers," the eggs being dull 

 white, finely speckled. 



