36 Bird Portraits 



the whole company move to the spruce forests of the North, not 

 to return to us until the next September. 



In the Northern States, the Golden-crowned Kinglet is the only 

 species that remains all winter, but from Virginia southward its 

 cousin, the Ruby-crowned Kinglet, is associated with it; in summer, 

 strange to say, the more Southern winter species goes farther North 

 than the Golden-crowned, breeding from northern Maine to the frigid 

 zone. A few years ago, no eggs or nest of either Kinglet had been 

 described, but when they were at last discovered, they proved as 

 dainty as the little builders themselves. The nest is globular, with 

 an entrance in the upper part; it is placed in a thick mass of spruce 

 twigs and composed of hanging moss, ornamented with bits of dead 

 leaves, and lined chiefly with feathers. In such a nest, as many as 

 nine eggs are often laid; imagine the little Golden-crown brooding 

 in this bower. 



Like some of the Warbler family, the Kinglet does not let an 

 insect escape, though it should take wing before it could be seized. 

 The bird, too, has wings, and darts out after its prey. In winter, it 

 often hovers under the piazza roofs, or the lintels of the barn door, 

 and while in the air, picks off the eggs or chrysalids that have 

 been hidden in the crevices. Occasionally one of the birds, in its 

 eagerness to seize some attractive morsel, flies sharply against a 

 windowpane. No doubt it is the part of a thrifty householder to 

 sweep out the insects from his piazza roof, but there are some, like 

 Lowell, wise enough to leave a few decayed limbs on their apple 

 trees for the Woodpeckers, a patch or so of weeds for the Snowbirds, 

 and a chrysalis or two for the hungry Kinglets in winter. 



