Regulus satrapa.
(Begin new sheet). 36.
Our Present Knowledge of the Nidification
of the American Kinglets.
Ernest Ingersoll.
Little more can be said in respect to the Golden-crested Kinglet
(Regulus satrapa; Licht.). Its range is nearly as extensive, but more
northerly; it does not descend in winter beyond Mexico. Nothing
is known with certainty of its breeding anywhere in the United
States, although it may be found to do so in the northern moun-
tainous portions. Mr. Thomas G. Gentry is confident that it nidi-
ficates in cavities in the tall trees which crown the heights of Eastern
Pennsylvania, despite the generally accepted notion that it follows
its foreign cousin in building a pensile nest and laying white eggs,
finely sprinkled with buff dots, in size about equal to those of
Humming-birds. It has also been inferred that this Kinglet raises
two broods in a season. Mr. Nuttall and Dr. Cooper both found it
feeding full-fledged young on the Columbia River, on May 21; and
Audubon observed the same thing in Labrador in August. Mr.
Maynard found it common at Lake Umbagog, Me., in June; he
says it breeds there, and that, judging from the condition of female
specimens dissected, it deposits its eggs about June 1. Several
pairs were found in the thick woods there, but no nests could be
discovered; he thought they built, probably, in the long hanging-
moss so abundant on the trees in those northern forests. Mr. Her-
ricks puts it down positively as breeding on the island of Grand Menan,
and Dr. Brewer in Maine. Mr. Allen informs me that he met with
young, attended by the parents, the third week in August, 1876,
on Mount Monadnock, New Hampshire, which he has no doubt
were hatched in the immediate vicinity. Mr. J. K. Lord states that
these birds were abundant on Vancouver's Island and the adjacent
coast, where he found them building pensile nests suspended from
the tips of high pine branches, in which they laid from five to seven
eggs. He does not describe the eggs, which was hardly to be ex-
pected, perhaps, considering the half-use he seems to have made of
his opportunities.
Herr F. W. Baedeker has figured the egg in the “Journal für
Ornithologie” (1856, p. 33, Pl. I, Fig. 8), and also in his large work
on the eggs of the birds of Europe. Dr. Coues observes, in a pri-
vate communication to me, “The plate indicates a rather roundish
egg, though the two specimens figured differ noticeably in size and
shape; they are spoken of in the text as ‘niedliche kleine Eirchen
mit lehmgelben ben Flekschen auf weissen Grunde,’ and compared
with those of other species illustrated on the same plate.”
Regulus cuvieri, described by Audubon from a specimen taken
near the banks of the Schuylkill River, has remained unknown to
ornithologists ever since.
than the Ruby-crowned. Bull. N.O.C. I, Nov, 1876, p. 78-79.