WRU.Hi! UILP lUKDS AS PETS 391 



little pine tree on the baleony post, and a nuthateh is ealling as 

 he pecks the suet \n\i into a hole in an old branch. He spreads 

 his wings and tail, points his bill and makes a very cross noise 

 if any sparrow or chickadee tries to interfere with him. In fact, 

 he drives them away if he finds them near the food he wants. 



We have five little chickadees that visit us. Just now one 

 took a drink from a dripping icicle, hovering just below it as he 

 drank. When they can't get water, they chew snow, and it 

 takes quite a little to give them a drink. We have a drinking 

 cup out for them, but it freezes so quickly these cold days, that 

 I'm afraid it doesn't do them much good. We keep suet out for 

 them, and chopped raw peanuts, of which all birds are very fond. 



When we first began to feed them, they were very greedy, 

 always taking the biggest pieces they could find, flying away to 

 hide them, and then hurrying back for more. Sometimes they 

 hide things now, but more often they stay right here and eat 

 them. The little chickadee takes a piece of nut, tucks it under 

 his foot to hold it and then pecks away at it. The nuthatch 

 wiir stay to eat small pieces, but if he finds a large one, he carries 

 it away, and thrusts it under a piece of bark and there eats it. 



We have a shelf fastened to the rail, on which to feed them, 

 but we also put nuts into the cocoanut swing, and also into the 

 swinging cocoanut house. You would enjoy seeing a little chicka- 

 dee alight on this cocoanut shell house when it is swinging, jump 

 into one window, take a nut and fly out the opposite window. 

 Besides these things we have two Christmas trees and a shelter 

 made of a crate set on a box and covered with evergreens. On 

 stormy days, they like this shelter. There is a swinging shelf 

 inside for food, and the evergreen branches thrust through the 

 cracks of the crate make many perches where they eat their nuts. 



As Christmas day was warm, we opened a window, and by 

 drawing a chair with some nuts on it further and further from the 

 window, and clcser and closer to the table, we soon had several 

 little chickadees enjoying their Christmas dinners, one at a time, 

 right beside cur own table. As we drew the chair away from the 

 window, the chickadee couldn't see it, and flew to the back of a 

 chair, and looked around. When he discovered the food, he 

 flew to it immediately. He seemed to know it was meant for 

 him. Chickadees have such confiding ways, and will soon 

 investigate any new thing you put out for them ! 



