108 CEDAR BIRD. 



cherries, selecting the best and ripest of the fruit. Nor are 

 they easily intimidated by the presence of Mr Scarecrow ; for 

 I have seen a flock deliberately feasting on the fruit of a 

 loaded cherry tree, while on the same tree one of these 

 guardian angels, and a very formidable one too, stretched his 

 stiffened arms, and displayed his dangling legs, with all the 

 pomposity of authority. At this time of the season, most 

 of our resident birds, and many of our summer visitants, are 

 sitting or have young; while, even on the 1st of June, the 

 eggs in the ovary of the female cedar bird are no larger than 

 mustard seed ; and it is generally the 8th or 10th of that 

 month before they begin to build. These last are curious cir- 

 cumstances, which it is difficult to account for, unless by sup- 

 posing that incubation is retarded by a scarcity of suitable 

 food in spring, berries and other fruit being their usual 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 fat ; and, about the 10th or 

 12th 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. 



