The entrySet() method is allowed to return a view of the underlying Map in which an Iterator and Map.Entry. This clever idea was used in several Map implementations, but introduces the possibility of nasty coding mistakes. If a map m returns such an iterator for an entrySet, then c.addAll(m.entrySet()) will go badly wrong. All of the Map implementations in OpenJDK 1.7 have been rewritten to avoid this, you should to.