BIRDS OF THE UNITED STATES. 
269 
The rude house which is built for the accommodation of the eggs, being 
open and much exposed, and made of seemingly unsuitable materials, fails 
to provide the necessary protection, and thus is necessitated close and 
arduous sitting by both birds. The hatching of a few young birds at the 
time when eggs are being laid, secures the continued warmth necessary 
for development, and thus materially aids parental exertions. In many 
instances the eggs are deposited before the incubating process has com- 
menced. The time required for hatching is about fourteen days. 
While this business is progressing, the male, when not upon the nest, 
seldom forsakes his partner, save to provide himself and her with food., 
Perched upon a small limb close-by, he seems all vigilance, and is in 
constant readiness to reply to her calls. Feelings of the most devoted 
affection are mutually exchanged. If the eggs are handled, prior to the 
assumption of incubation, the birds are apt to desert the nest ; but when 
this has commenced, the female is so attached to her young that she will 
almost permit herself to be captured rather than leave them. If forced to 
vacate, we have never known her to precipitate herself upon the ground, 
and seek, by her fluttering and personation of lameness, to draw the in- 
truder away, as FTuttall affirms, but have always observed her to take a 
position upon a tree in the immediate vicinity, where she would sit silently 
and demurely contemplating the purposed desecration. Mr. Newton, in his 
paper on the habits of the birds of St. Groix Island, testifies to the con- 
jugal affection which is evinced by these birds. On one occasion a male 
had been killed. The female, attracted by his shriek as he fell to the 
ground, appeared upon the scene, and showed the most intense anxiety. 
In the summer of 1872, a nest of this species was placed upon a tree 
within full view of our window, from which the minutest details of the 
every-day life of these birds could be closely studied. Children in their 
plays would frequently pass under the tree while the birds were engaged in 
breeding, but the latter were so intent upon the work that their presence 
was unheeded. The nest was completed, eggs were dejiosited and hatched, 
and the young matured, the parent birds evidently feeling as secure as in 
