KINGLETS, ETC.: ASHY RUBY-CROWNED KINGLET 587 
Nest. —Usually 9 to 30 feet from the ground, in spruce, fir or pine, semi-pensile, 
bulky, thick-walled, made of green moss, shreds of bark, and feathers, warmly lined 
with hair and feathers. Eggs: 5 to 11, whitish or pale bully, faintly marked with 
pale brown, chiefly around the larger end. 
Food. —Animal matter 94 per cent, and vegetable, 6 per cent. The vegetable 
matter is fruit—mainly elderberries—weed seed, poison oak, and leaf galls. Three- 
fourths of the food consists of wasps, bugs, and flies; and beetles make 12 per cent. 
The bugs are the most harmful kinds—tree hoppers, leaf hoppers, and jumping 
plant lice, which are pests and often do great harm to trees and smaller plants; 
together with plant lice and scale insects, which are the worst scourges of the fruit 
grower, and whose prevalence has almost risen to the magnitude of a national peril. 
It is these small and seemingly insignificant birds that most successfully attack and 
hold in check these insidious foes of horticulture (Henshaw). 
General Habits. —The Ruby-crown, which, in excitement, throws 
out and expands his partially concealed crown patch until it suggests 
a glowing scarlet blossom, is found in the nesting season in the high 
dark fir and spruce forest, which he lightens by his bright happy song— 
a most surprising song in its volume and richness, coming from the 
throat of such a diminutive bird. At this time he is alone with his 
family and we know him as an individual, but when on his fall journey 
south his identity is lost, for he is one of a multitude that take 
possession of our orchards. Here part of the flock will fill a tree so 
well that all its leaves seem winged. After closely inspecting the best 
insect hiding places, with a lift of the wing and a chatter, the busy 
company go trailing off to the next tree to carry on their good work. 
We found them in the Pecos Mountains, at 11,000 feet, when we 
reached there July 21, 1903, their loud exuberant song being the 
commonest heard from the blue spruces. Two days later a pair, which 
we encountered in the woods at dusk, scolded us so roundly that when 
we discovered a dim third form, we understood their anxiety. By 
August 1, family cares were apparently too engrossing to allow of 
continuous concerts; a week later the songs were so rarely heard as to 
call for especial comment, and by August 17, at our 11,600-foot camp 
at the foot of Pecos Baldy, the young were flying about quite inde¬ 
pendently. 
In the mountains above Taos the third week of July, 1904, the 
Ruby-crowns were still singing at 11,400 feet; on August 26, we sus¬ 
pected an occupied nest; and at 11,000 feet on Lost Trail Creek a 
parent was found feeding young. In the Jemez Mountains the last of 
August, 1906, and in the open parks of the San Juan Mountains early 
in September, the small birds were still singing brightly; while at Cliff, 
in the sunny cottonwoods bordering the Gila, November 8, one sang 
his full clear beautiful song over and over, as if his little heart were 
still full of the happiness of summer. 
