Oh stay, oh stay,
One parting strain, and then away.
—William Cullen Bryant.
THE GOLDEN-CROWNED KINGLET.
(Regulus satrapa.)
The autumn wanes, and kinglets go,
Sweet-voiced and knightly in their way,
And all the birds our summers know,
They flock and leave us day by day.
—Frank H. Sweet, “Flocking of the Birds.”
In these pleasing words the poet speaks of the kinglets. Yet his words may hardly apply to the Golden-crowned Kinglet, except in the northernmost part of its range, for it winters from the northern border of the United States southward to the Gulf of Mexico. “Muffled in its thick coat of feathers, the diminutive Goldcrest braves our severest winters, living evidence that, given an abundance of food, temperature is a secondary factor in a bird’s existence.”