3508 Birds. 



are not given by any of the naturalists to whose works I have had ac- 

 cess ; but in autumn, uniting in large bands, they press towards the 

 tropical regions of the continent, so that winter finds them inhabiting 

 the southern States of the Union, or at times passing their Christmas 

 among the plantations of Jamaica, or the dense forests of Cayenne, 

 which verge on the confines of the equator. So much for the geogra- 

 phical distribution of these birds, whose periodical movements appear 

 to be influenced more by the supply of food, than by the variation of 

 the temperature, though this last reason may often be the prime cause 

 of the first. They are almost entirely frugivorous, the exception being 

 during the breeding-season, when they are stated to make full com- 

 pensation for the portion of the fruit-crop they destroy, by the havoc 

 they cause among the larvae, which would be more injurious to it. In 

 their playful and social habits they are said to resemble ravens or red- 

 polls, preening each other's feathers, and feeding one another with a 

 highly desirable degree of Platonic affection, entirely independent of 

 sex or season. In the winter they appear to be shy and restless, but 

 in the summer they rather affect human society, and breed usually in 

 orchards and gardens. Towards the end of May or the beginning of 

 June, having paired, they begin the work of nest-building, choosing 

 indifferently cherry, apple, hemlock, or cedar trees for their locations, 

 and at the height of from six to eighteen feet constructing their habi- 

 tations of " dry coarse grass, interwoven roughly with a considerable 

 quantity of dead hemlock sprigs, further connected by a small quan- 

 tity of silk-weed* lint, and lined with a few strips of thin grape-vine 

 bark, and dry leaves of the silver fir," but at other times using " fine 

 root-fibres" as an inner lining. Of whatever materials the nest may 

 be constructed, vegetable down or " lint " always appears to enter as 

 a component part. At Cambridge, Massachusetts, Mr. Nuttall has 

 known two eggs in a nest on the 4th of June, and a brood of young 

 in the nest on the 7th of September. The period of incubation is 

 stated to be fifteen or sixteen days. Audubon says that they lay four 

 eggs, " of a purplish white, marked with black spots, which are larger 

 towards the great end ; " the length of the egg being " 9-twelfths, its 

 breadth 7-twelfths" of an inch: Wilson states that "the eggs are three 

 or four, of a dingy bluish white, thick at the great end, tapering sud- 

 denly, 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 purplish tinge, marked likewise with touches of vari- 



* Abclepias, sp. 



