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In the twenty-first year of the reign of Ta Hao, the Great Great One, of the Golden Heavenly Dynasty, a man named P'o Chia, whose first name was Lo Yü, an enterprising kinglet of Hsi Yii, seized the throne for twenty years, after carrying on a war for a space of three years. His kingdom was known as Hsing Lin, and the title of his reign as Miao Chuang.
"Come over to me, and leave this half-crowned kinglet of yours. It shall be worth your while." "Hard up for men must you be, Hodulf," said one of my courtmen, laughing. At that he made a sign to his followers, for they came on us at the gallop, with levelled spears.
How does the ruby-crowned kinglet know he has a brilliant bit of color on his crown which he can uncover at will, and that this has great charms for the female? During the rivalries of the males in the mating season, and in the autumn also, they flash this brilliant ruby at each other. I witnessed what seemed to be a competitive display of this kind one evening in November.
Alban's chronicler declared that Henry left to himself such scanty possessions that he became a "mutilated kinglet". But Henry was too jealous of power utterly to renounce so large a share of his dominions. His grants to his son were for purposes of revenue and support, and the government of these regions was still strictly under the royal control.
He seems loath to believe that a bird so small as either of the kinglets could possess such vocal powers. It may indeed have been the winter wren, but from my own observation I believe the ruby-crowned kinglet quite capable of such a performance. But I must leave this part of the subject and hasten on.
'That is not all, she said. 'Go to the gallery, take the staircase which is on the left, and in the second room on the first story you will find another closet with my skirt. Bring this to me. The Kinglet did as he was told, but in entering the room he saw, instead of merely hands, eight arms, each holding an enormous stick.
The kinglet is finer-eyed and finer-billed than even the chickadee, and no doubt gathers what the latter overlooks, while the brown creeper, with his long, slender, curved bill, takes what both the nuthatch and the woodpecker miss. Working together, it seems as if they must make a pretty clean sweep. But the trees are numerous and large, and the birds are few.
At one cattle-ranch where we stopped, the troupials, or big black and yellow orioles, had built a large colony of their nests on a dead tree near the primitive little ranch-house. The birds were breeding; the old ones were feeding the young. In this neighborhood the naturalists found many birds that were new to them, including a tiny woodpecker no bigger than a ruby-crowned kinglet.
He was a mere kinglet and of little or no consequence at the time of Captain Cook's arrival in 1788; but about four years afterward he conceived the idea of enlarging his sphere of influence. That is a courteous modern phrase which means robbing your neighbor for your neighbor's benefit; and the great theater of its benevolences is Africa.
These remarks are made, not with any reference to the chickadee, I admit no possibility of exaggeration in his case, but as leading to a mention of the golden-crested kinglet. He is the least of all our winter birds, and one of the most engaging. Emerson's "atom in full breath" and "scrap of valor" would apply to him even better than to the titmouse.
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