180 
REGULUS CALENDULA. 
GENUS XXIV. — REG UL US, Vieill. 
140 . REGULUS CALENDULA, STEPHENS. 
SYLVIA CALENDULA, WILSON. RUBY-CROWNED WREN. 
WILSON, PLATE V. FIG. III. 
This little bird visits ns 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 
summer, I have rarely met with these birds in Penn- 
sylvania; 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 season, are infested with great numbers of 
small black-winged insects, among which they make 
great havoc. I have often regretted the painful neces- 
sity 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 com- 
panions 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, at this 
season, I have stood under the tree, motionless, to 
observe them, while they gleaned among the low 
branches sometimes within a foot or two of my head. 
They are extremely adroit in catching their prey ; have 
only at times a feeble chirp ; visit the tops of the 
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