SPECIES 2. SYLVM CALENDULA. 
RUBY-CROWNED WREN. 
[Plate V. — Fig. 3.] 
Le lioitelet Rubis, Buff, v, 373. — Edw. 254. — Lath. Syn, ii, 
511. — Jlrct. Zool. 320. — Regulus cristatus alter vertice rubini 
coloris, 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 insects that hover among them. In the middle of sum- 
mer 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 October and beginning of November in orchards, 
among the decaying leaves of the apple-trees, that at that sea- 
son are infested with great numbers of small, black, winged in- 
sects, among which they make great havock. I have often re- 
gretted the painful necessity one is under of taking away the 
lives of such inoffensive useful little creatures, 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 
* The following' synonymes may be added: — Motacilla calendula, Lisrif. i, 
ji. 337. — Gmei. Syst. i, p, 994. — Sylvia calendula, Lath. Ind. Orn. ii, p. 549. 
—Regulus rubineus, Vieillot, Ois. de I'Jhn. Sept. pi. 104, male; 105, young 
given as female. 
