700 MICHIGAN PJRD LIFR. 



it certainly occurs in similar latitudes in Ontario, Maine and New Brunswick, 

 but the fact that numerous good observers have failed to find it at all 

 in such situations or elsewhere in Michigan seems to i^rove conclusively 

 that it is not generally distributed. The writer has spent some time in 

 two different years in the Upper Peninsula, near Marquette, about Munising, 

 at Grand Marais, Alger county, at Sault Ste. Marie and in Mackinac 

 county, but in spite of careful search for the bird was unable to find a 

 single specimen. These visits, however, were both in late summer. Mr. 

 T. L. Hankinson, who spent several weeks in Houghton county in August 

 1905 says: "I looked constantly for the Hudsonian Chickadee, but did 

 not fincl any, although I was near enough to a good many Chickadees 

 to see the color of the crown, which in all cases was black." This species 

 is not mentioned in the manuscript report of Mr. E. A. Doolittle, who 

 spent several weeks on Grand Island, Lake Superior, in the summer of 

 1906. 



Mr. Outran! Bangs, writing of this bird at Digby, Nova Scotia says: 

 "Here the Hudsonian Chickadee is rather hard to shoot * * * keep- 

 ing almost exclusively in the thick second growth spruce and fir woods, 

 but in a day's walk through their favorite haunts I never failed to see less 

 than 25 or 50, and often many times that number. In October and Novem- 

 ber they are in large loose flocks in company with the Common Chickadee 

 and the Golden-crowned Kinglet, and often the spruce woods seem fairly 

 alive with these birds, always in motion, always passing on and on through 

 the spruces so fast that it is impossible to keep up with them. Often 

 while walking through these dense forests of evergreens, suddenly as if by 

 magic the trees about one become alive with these three species, their cheer- 

 ful notes sounding from every branch, and the next moment as suddenly as 

 they came, thej^ will disappear again and leave the forest still and gloomy 

 as before. * * * jn August and September 1880 my brother, E. H. 

 Bangs, was camped on the Restigouche River, N. B., and found the 

 Hudsonian Chickadee quite abundant all along the river. He got a good 

 series of them without difficulty." 



Dr. C. W. Townsend, who studied this species somewhat carefully on 

 Cape Breton Island in August and September, 1905, speaks as follows of 

 the song: ''It is as easy to distinguish this bird by its notes from the 

 familiar Black-capped Chickadee, as by its plumage. * * * Both 

 chickadees have a variety of faint notes that are very much alike, but 

 there is one characteristic in most of the notes of the Hudsonian which 

 at once distinguishes it from the Black-cap, and that is the z quality, de- 

 livered in a lower pitch. In a word, the Hudsonian uses z while the Black- 

 cap uses s or d. The former says pst zee-zee or less often pst zee-zee-zee, 

 while the latter repeats more frequently, and rattles off, psik, a dee-dee- 

 dee-dee-dee, and his notes are higher pitched. Several times in different 

 places I was treated to a pleasant little warble from the Hudsonian 

 Chickadee, which appeared to my companion and myself to easily merit 

 the name of song. It was a low, bubbling, war1)ling song, which I vainly 

 tried to describe in my notes. It began with a jiHtt or tsee, followed by 

 a sweet but short wai'ble * * * quite different from the irregular 

 rolling notes that the lilack-cap occasionallv emits" (Auk, XXIII, 1906, 

 178). 



The nesting habits of this bird appear to be quite similar to those of 

 the Black-capped Chickadee, the nest being placed in a deserted wood- 

 jiecker hole, or a hollow dug out of the decayed wood by the l)ird itself. 



