His body is padded with a thick feather overcoat that enables him to stay all winter, if he chooses, in all but the most northern States.
[Illustration: Golden-crowned Kinglet.] "Small as he is, however, every one knows him, for he disports himself at some time of the year in the North, South, East, and West.

If you see a tiny bird, darting quick as a mouse in and out among the budded twigs of fruit trees in early spring, now and then showing a black stripe and a little gleam of red or yellow on its head, it is this Kinglet.

If you see such a pygmy again in autumn, exploring the bare twigs, it is this Kinglet.

When light snow is first powdering the spruces and bending the delicate hemlock branches, dusky shapes flit out of the green cover.

Are they dry leaves blown about by the gust?
No, leaves do not climb about in the face of the wind, or pry and peep into every cone crevice, crying 'twe-zee, twe-zee, twe-zee!' They are not leaves, but a flock of Kinglets forcing the bark crevices to yield them a breakfast of the insects which had put themselves comfortably to bed for the winter.
Think of the work that these birds do, who not only fight the insect army in summer, but in sleet and snow are as busy as ever destroying the eggs that would turn in another season to worms and eat the orchards! "Though the Golden-crowned Kinglets rove about in flocks a great part of the year, they are extremely private in the nesting season.