110 RUBY-CROWNED KINGLET, 



sliot in Kenmore Wood, Loch. Lomondside, in the 

 summer of 1852, Living in its vicinity, I went to the 

 wood for the j)urpose of shooting some specimens of 

 Goldcrests, which are always there in abundance. After 

 procuring upwards of a dozen, I found, on looking 

 them over, what I took to be the Firecrest: this I 

 safely deposited among my other skins, where it lay 

 till last year, when, on examining it carefully, with the 

 view of exhibiting it at the Natural History Society 

 here, to my surprise my specimen turned out to be, 

 not Regulus ignicapilhis, as I had supposed, but Regulus 

 calendula of North America, I forwarded it to Mr. 

 Gould for examination, to whom I afterwards presented 

 the specimen. Although I look upon the occurrence 

 of Regulus calendula in this country as a subject of 

 extreme interest, still it has no claim to a place among 

 our birds, farther than as one of the many stragglers 

 which from time to time find their way to our shores. 

 How this little creature, the most diminutive of all the 

 American species which have visited Britain, found its 

 way across the Atlantic is almost inconceivable. My 

 belief is that most of the American species which are 

 met with in this country, are aided in their passage 

 by vessels crossing the Atlantic, and I think it utterly 

 impossible for such a tiny bird as this to find its way 

 across without some such assistance. Two or three 

 instances have occurred to my own observation, in 

 which birds were conveyed in this way." 



Audubon's account of this bird is so interesting that 

 I will take the liberty of making from it a very long 

 extract. His Avriting is always welcome to the real 

 lover of nature. — "The history of this diminutive bird 

 is yet in a great measure unknown, and although I 

 have met with it in places where it undoubtedly breeds. 



