48 CEDAR-BIRD. 



fare. In May, before the cherries are ripe, they are lean, and little 

 else is found in their stomachs than a few shrivelled cedar berries, the 

 refuse of the former season, and a few fragments of beetles and other 

 insects, which do not appear to be their common food ; but in June, 

 while cherries and strawberries abound, they become extremely fatj and 

 about the tenth or twelfth of that month, disperse over the country in 

 pairs to breed ; sometimes fixing on the cedar, but generally choosing 

 the orchard for that purpose. The nest is large for the size of the bird, 

 fixed in the forked or horizontal branch of an apple tree, ten or twelve 

 feet from the ground ; outwardly, and at bottom, is laid a mass of coarse 

 dry stalks of grass, and the inside is lined wholly with very fine stalks of 

 the same material. The eggs are three or four, of a dingy bluish white, 

 thick at the great end, tapering suddenly, and becoming very narrow at 

 the other ; marked with small roundish spots of black of various sizes 

 and shades ; and the great end is of a pale dull purple tinge, marked 

 likewise with touches of various shades of purple and black. About 

 the last week in June the young are hatched, and are at first fed on 

 insects and their larvae ; but as they advance in growth, on berries of 

 various kinds. These facts I have myself been an eye witness to. The 

 female, if disturbed, darts from the nest in silence to a considerable dis- 

 tance ; no notes of wailing or lamentation are heard from either parent, 

 nor are they even seen, notwithstanding you are in the tree examining 

 the nest and young. These nests are less frequently found than many 

 others ; owing not only to the comparatively few numbers of the birds, 

 but to the remarkable muteness of the species. The season of love, 

 which makes almost every other small bird musical, has no such effect 

 on them ; for they continue at that interesting period as silent as before. 

 This species is also found in Canada, where it is called Recollet, 

 probably, as Dr. Latham supposes, from the color and appearance of its 

 crest resembling the hood of an order of friars of that denomination ; it 

 has also been met with by several of our voyagers on the north-west 

 coast of America, and appears to have an extensive range. 



Almost all. the ornithologists of Europe persist in considering this 

 bird as a variety of the European Chatterer (A. garrulus), with what 

 justice or propriety, a mere comparison of the two will determine. The 

 European species is very nearly twice the cubic bulk of ours ; has the 

 whole lower parts of an uniform dark vinous bay ; the tips of the wings 

 streaked with lateral bars of yellow; the nostrils covered with bristles;* 

 the feathers on the chin loose and tufted ; the wings black ; and the 

 markings of white and black on the sides of the head difi"erent from the 

 American, which is as follows : — Length seven inches, extent eleven 

 inches ; head, neck, breast, upper part of the back, and wing-coverts, a 



* Turton. 



