The Western Golden-crowned Kinglet 
The kinglet and queenlet are a devoted pair in nesting time. 
Whether gathering materials for the nest or hunting for food after the 
babies are hatched, they work in company as much as possible. They 
are discovered, it may be a hundred yards from the home tree, gleaning 
assiduously. After a time one of the birds by a muffled squeak an¬ 
nounces a beakful, and suggests a return; the other acquiesces and they 
set off homeward, the male usually in the lead. It looks as though 
tracing would be an easy matter, but the birds stop circumspectly at 
every tree clump en route, and they are all too easily lost to sight long 
before the home tree is reached. 
The female Kinglet is a close sitter and will not often leave the nest 
until the containing branch is sharply tapped. Then, invariably, she 
drops down a couple of feet and flits sharply sidewise, with manifest 
intent to deceive the laggard eye. Yet almost immediately she is minded 
to return, and will do so, if there is no further demonstration of hostilities. 
Re-covering the eggs is not always an easy matter, for the well is deep 
and the mouth narrow. One dame lighted on the brim of her nest and 
bowed and scraped and stamped, precisely as a carefully disciplined hus¬ 
band will when he brings muddy boots to the kitchen door. The opera¬ 
tion was evidently quite unconnected with hesitation in view of my 
presence, but in some way was preparatory to her sinking carefully into 
the feather-lined pit before her. When she first covered the eggs, also, 
there was a great fuss made in settling, as though to free her feathers 
from the engaging edges of the nest. When the bird is well down upon 
her eggs there is nothing visible but the top of her head and the tip of 
her tail. 
The male bird, meanwhile, is not indifferent. First he bustles up 
onto the nesting branch and flashes his fiery crest in plain token of anger, 
but later he is content to squeak disapproval from a position more 
removed. 
While the mother bird is sitting, the male tends her faithfully, but 
he spends his spare moments, according to Mr. Bowles, in constructing 
“cock nests,” or decoys, in the neighboring trees. These seem to serve 
no purpose beyond that of a nervous relief to the impatient father, and 
are seldom as carefully constructed as the veritable domus. 
When the young of the first brood are hatched and ready to fly, the 
chief care of them falls to the father, while the female prepares for a 
second nesting. As to the further domestic relations one cannot speak 
with certainty, but it would seem probable that fall bird troops consist 
of the combined families of Mr. and Mrs. Quiverful. 
800 
