FAMILY OF SYLVIANS. ' 19

the dusky wing, and a bright scarlet patch on the crown. It is a. summer visitant, with a soft- whispered voice and a hair—lined nest in the thick fir bushes.

The Gold-crest (Regulus .tatrapa) is a perma- nent resident, flocking amid the winter snows with the Chickadees’and Nuthatches. It is the smallest of our songsters, except the Humming-bird; and its golden crest, and olive-green coat, and tiny wings, barred with white, make it a gem of feathered beauty. But what a mite! It is a perfect marvel, in the keenest winter weather, to see the tiny ball of animated down whispering its silvery song and foraging securely in the savage forest scenes. Then it puckers up its feathers and seems to suffer from the cold, but never ceases its silvery, whispered call notes. It feeds on insects and their eggs hidden in the chinks of the forest trees. ,

The nest, built in June, is a ball of soft mosses placed in a fir thicket, some four feet from the ground, and, though only two inches in

diameter inside, contains ten creamy-white eggs.

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