83 



RUBY-CROWNED WREN. 



SYLVIA CALENDULA, 

 [Plate v.— Fig. 3.] 



LeRoitelet Rubis, De Buff. V, 373.— Ed w. 254— Lath. Syn, II, 511.— Arct. Zool. 320. 

 — Regulus cristatus alter vertice riihini colons^ Bartram, p. 292. — Peale's Museum^ 

 No. 7244. 



THIS little bird visits us early in the spring from the south, 

 and is generally first found among the maple blossoms, about the 

 beginning of April. These failing, it has recourse to those of the 

 peach, apple and other fruit trees, partly for the tops of the sweet 

 and slender stamina of the flowers, and partly for the winged in- 

 sects that hover among them. In the middle of summer I have 

 rarely met with these birds in Pennsylvania ; and as they penetrate 

 as far north as the country round Hudson^ s Bay, and also breed 

 there, it accounts for their late arrival here in Fall. They then 

 associate with the different species of Titmouse, and the Golden- 

 crested Wren ; and are particularly numerous in the month of Oc- 

 tober and beginning of November in orchards, among the decaying 

 leaves of the apple-trees, that at that season are infested with great 

 numbers of small, black, winged insects, among which they make 

 great havock. I have often regretted the painful necessity one is 

 under of taking away the lives of such inoffensive useful little crea- 

 tures, merely to obtain a more perfect knowledge of the species ; 

 for they appear so busy, so active and unsuspecting, as to continue 

 searching about the same twig, even after their companions have 

 been shot down beside them. They are more remarkably so in 

 autumn; which may be owing to the great number of young and 

 inexperienced birds which are then among them ; and frequently 



