THE SINGING BIRDS. 301 



were more abundant than the males. At this season the yellow spot on their head is less con- 

 spicuous than towards spring, when they raise their crest-feathers while courting. The young, shot in 

 Newfoundland, in August, had this part of the head of a uniform tint with that of the body. With 

 us they are amazingly fat, but at Newfoundland we found them the reverse." 



"The Satrap Wren," sa/s Audubon, "breeds in Labrador, where I saw it feeding its young in 

 August, when the species appeared already moving southward ; but although it was common there 

 and in Newfoundland, as was the Ruby-crowned Knight, we did not succeed in our search for its 

 nest. It enters the United States late in September, and continues its journey beyond their limits, 

 as I have met with it on the borders of our most southern districts during winter. Individuals remain 

 in all the Southern and Western States the whole of that season, and leave them again about the 

 beginning of March. They generally associate in groups, composed each of a whole family, and feed 

 in company with Titmice, Nuthatches, and Brown Creepers, perambulating the tops of trees and 

 bushes, sometimes in the very depth of the forests or of the most dismal swamps, while at other times 

 they approach the plantations and enter the gardens and yards. Their movements are always 

 extremely lively and playful. They follow minute insects on the wing, seize them among the 

 leaves of the pines, or search for larvae in the chinks of the branches. Like the Titmice, they 

 are often seen hanging to the extremities of twigs and bunches of leaves, sometimes fluttering in the 

 air in front of them, and are unceasingly occupied. They have no song at this season, but merely 

 emit now and then a low screcp." 



THE RUBY-CROWNED WREN. 



The Ruby-Crowned Wren (Regulus cakndulus) is four inches long and six in extent of wing ; 

 the upper parts of the head, neck, and back are olive, with a considerable tinge of yellow ; 

 wings and tail dusky purplish brown, exteriorly edged with yellow olive ; secondaries and first row of 

 wing-coverts edged and tipped with white, with a spot of deep purplish brown across the secondaries, 

 just below their coverts ; the hinder part of the head is ornamented with an oblong lateral spot of 

 vermilion, usually almost hid by the other plumage ; round the eye a ring of yellowish white ; whole 

 under parts of the same tint; legs dark brown, feet and claws yellow, bill slender, straight not 

 notched, furnished with a few black hairs at the base ; inside of the mouth orange. The female differs 

 very little in its plumage from the male, the colours being less lively, and the bird somewhat less. 



" This little bird," says Wilson, " is an American species, visits us early in the spring from the 

 south, and is generally first found among the maple blossoms about the beginning of April ; these 

 failing, it has recourse to those of the peach, apple, and other fruit trees, partly for the tops of the 

 sweet and slender stamina of the flowers, and partly for the winged insects that hover among them. 

 In the middle of summer I have rarely met with these birds in Pennsylvania ; and as they penetrate 

 as far north as the country round Hudson's Bay, and also breed there, it accounts for their late arrival 

 here in fall. They then associate with the different species of TitniQuse and the Golden-crested 

 Wren, and are particularly numerous in the month of October and beginning of November, in 

 orchards, among the decaying leaves of the apple-trees, that at that season are infested with great 

 numbers of small, black-winged insects, among which they make a great havoc. I have often 

 regretted the painful necessity one is under of taking the lives of such inoffensive, useful little 

 creatures, merely to obtain a more perfect knowledge of the species, for they appear so busy, so 

 active and unsuspecting, as to continue searching about the same twig, even after their companions 

 have been shot down beside them. They are more remarkably so in autumn, which may be owing to 

 the great number of young and inexperienced birds which are then among them ; and frequently at 

 this season I have stood under the tree, motionless, to observe them, while they gleaned among the 



