GOLDEN-CROWNED KINGLET. 101 
birds, from November to March. In Wisconsin and Illinois, it usually arrives from its 
northern breeding-range toward the beginning of October, often in company with its 
near relative, the Ruby-crown.— That the true home of the former species is in the fir, 
pine, and spruce woods of the North is proved by its predilection for coniferous trees, 
even during migration. In Wisconsin, it is most likely to be found wherever the white 
pine and hemlock grow; and in northern Illinois, it prefers to haunt those ornamental 
gardens and parks which are planted with different species of conifers. In south-eastern 
Texas, the bird is to be found, as a rule, only in the extensive woodlands of long- 
leaved pine. Only when there is a scarcity of inse¢ts, does it search the deciduous trees 
and shrubs. 
Its habits are so fully in accordance with those of the Ruby-crown, that a more 
detailed description of it seems superfluous. Its nearest relative is the common European 
Kinglet (Regulus cristatus). 
“T have long been familiar,” says Dr. Elliott Coues, ‘‘with the resorts and the 
sprightly ways of the Golden-crest; but these scarcely call for remark after what has 
been said about the Ruby-crown, since their habits and manners are closely corre- 
spondent. In peering about for inse¢ts and larve that lurk in the chinks of bark, it is 
equally tireless, and makes the same show of petty turbulence—another ‘tempest in the 
teapot.’ The song, I am not sure, I have ever recognized, and most authors have 
passed it over.” IJ have often had an opportunity of hearing its notes, but they are much 
inferior to the loud and melodious strain of the Ruby-crown, with which it can hardly 
be compared. It is a low whispering, often interrupted by its wiry call-notes, sounding 
somewhat like sree-sree-sree. 
The Golden-crest is a summer resident of the Canadian Fauna, breeding from the 
extreme northern and elevated portions of the United States northward. In his admir- 
able paper on the ‘Birds ‘of Western North Carolina,” * Mr. William Brewster mentions 
this Kinglet as one of the most abundant and characteristic birds of that regidn. He 
observed it throughout the sombre balsam forest on the upper slope and ridges of the 
Black Mountain. It remained well up in the tree-tops, where it was next to impossible 
to get a sight of it. 
Up to the year 1888, the published descriptions of the nesting of this species were 
somewhat meagre, and more or less conflicting. In the October number of the “Auk” 
(Vol. V, p. 3837—344, 1888), Mr. William Brewster gives a description of the breeding of 
the Golden-crested Kinglet in Worcester County, Massachusetts, in his own admirable 
manner. As the subject is treated into detail, I can give no more than an extract: He 
found the first nest June 13, 1888, when the birds were at work on the lining, the 
exterior being apparently completed. June 29, it contained a set of nine eggs. “It was 
placed in a tall, slender spruce (A. nigra), on the south side, within about two feet of the top 
of the tree, and at least sixty feet above the ground, suspended among fine pendant twigs 
about two inches directly below a short horizontal branch, some twelve inches out 
from the main stem, and an equal distance from the end of the branch. The tree stood 
near the upper edge of a narrow strip of dry, rather open woods bordered on one side 
by a road, on the other by an extensive Sphagnum swamp, the growth, both in the 
* “Auk,” Vol, III, 1885, p. 177. 
