The New Student's Reference Work/Kinglets
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King′lets are tiny, gray-green, active birds with brilliant spot on crown and with power of song out of all proportion to their size. The ruby-crowned kinglet is distributed through out North America, breeds in the far north, and is seen chiefly in fall, winter and early spring. The call-note is thin, and gives no hint of the rich melody of the song. Though so tiny, the bird is not shy, seldom allows an intruder to interrupt it in its business of hunting for insects and larvæ, in which it seems constantly at work. It is considerably smaller than the English sparrow, olive-green above, light yellowish-gray below, wing-bars whitish. It builds in evergreen forests, its nest surprisingly large, woven of moss, plant-fiber, and strips of fiber and lined with soft, warm material. The golden-crowned kinglet seldom keeps still long enough to allow the observer opportunity to study it in detail. But two of our birds are smaller, the humming-bird and the winter-wren. Its range is North America generally. See Blanchan’s Bird Neighbors.