702 MICHIGAN BIRD LIFE. 
This is one of the most restless of our birds, as well as one of the smallest, 
and is sure to attract attention from its manner of flitting quickly about 
among the foliage, often hovering suspended in the air 
at the tip of a branch or beneath a pine cone, from 
which it picks out some minute insect and then darts 
away to devour it. It is rarely seen during midsummer, % 
in most parts of the state, but is abundant during the fi 
spring and fall migrations and a considerable number f 
commonly linger through the entire winter in regions pig. 150. Golden- 
where evergreens are fairly abundant. We have never Growned singles. 
known a winter when this species was not present on Guide. Herehton, 
the campus of the Agricultural College, and sometimes 7 
a half dozen or more may be found in company with chickadees, nut- 
hatches and woodpeckers. 
We have never heard it sing, but it has a high, almost piercing call of 
four or five notes which it utters very frequently, and which is characteristic, 
but difficult to describe. Owing to its presence all winter in favorable 
localities the exact date of spring arrival is difficult to determine, but 
there is a marked increase in numbers about the first of April, and some- 
times for a few days the birds are present in companies of twenty or thirty, 
though never in compact flocks. Mr. B. H. Swales says: ‘March and 
April are the months of its greatest abundance near Detroit and it seldom 
remains later than May third.” He also states that it arrives from the. 
north late in September, remaining until November first, and that it is 
a irregular winter resident. A specimen was killed on Spectacle Reef 
Light, Lake Huron, April 12, 1890, and specimens were killed on the same 
light October 1, 1890, October 2, 1887, October 5, 1889 and October 5 
and 6, 1890; one was killed on Big Sable Light, Lake Superior, October 
1, 1894. 
The Golden-crowned Isinglet is a summer resident in a considerable 
part of northern Michigan, but apparently is nowhere abundant at that 
season. §. E. White states that at Mackinac Island it was ‘‘a’ common 
summer resident among the evergreens” in 1889, 1890 and 1891; and the 
University of Michigan expedition found it common in the forests of the 
Porcupine Mountains, Ontonagon county, in the summer of 1904. Accord- 
ing to Mr. N. A. Wood “young in the down were taken July 2, 1904, and 
it was abundant among the hemlocks in flocks, both young and adults, 
from July 13 to August 12. It has been reported as not uncommon during 
the nesting season in several places in the Upper Peninsula, and there can 
be little doubt that it nests’in favorable places not only in the Upper 
Peninsula but in the higher parts of the Lower Peninsula, wherever pines, 
spruces and hemlocks are abundant. 
Our only actual records of nesting however are those secured by the 
University of Michigan Expedition to Isle Royale, in 1905. Mr. Max 
M. Peet records the observations as follows: ‘‘Very common throughout 
the island, usually in small flocks of 15 to 20. They were never shy and 
their song was one of the most common sounds of the forest. July 6 a 
pair was seen with food in their mouths and gave every indication that 
they had young near. July 7 a pair was seen building a nest in a tall 
spruce. The birds were gathering the moss from the ground for nesting 
material. The nest was placed about twenty-five feet from the ground 
and was composed of green mosses partially lined with a white down-like 
substance. The site chosen was near the top of a small rocky hill where 
