LAND BIRDS. 695 



313. Black-capped Chickadee. Penthestes atricapillus atricapillus {Linn ) 



(735) 



Synonyms: Common Chickadee, Eastern Chickadee, Bhick-capped Titmouse. — 

 Parus atricai)illus, Linn., 176G, and of most authors. — Poecile atricapillus, Coues 1868 

 — Parus palustris, Nutt., 1832. ' ' 



Top of head from bill to nape lustrous black, as are also the chin and 

 throat; sides of head and neck clear white; breast and belly whitish, the 

 sides and flanks buffy; back, wings and tail gray. 



Distribution. — Eastern North America north of the Potomac and Ohio 

 Valleys. 



Perhaps this is the best known arboreal bird of the entire state. Com- 

 mon summer and winter ahke, and particularly noticeable while the trees 

 are leafless and other birds are scarce, the fluffy little Chickadee comes 

 freely about dwellings even in towns and cities and is almost universally 

 recognized and protected. While it Avanders more or less after the nesting 

 season and very possibly migrates southward to some extent every winter, 

 yet it is one of those species commonly called resident through the year 

 and in any locality may always be found if looked for. 



It is one of the species which does absolutely no harm so far as we know, 

 never attacking fruit or grain nor injuring any vegetable growth whatever. 

 It is possible, and even probable, that among the millions of insects and 

 insect eggs which it eats it does not always discriminate between useful 

 and harmful forms, but in the main its work as an insect eater is decidedly 

 beneficial, and, all things considered, the agriculturist has no better friend 

 among the birds. 



Its habits are too well known to need extended notice. Every one is 

 familiar with its actions; hopping from twig to twig, clinging to the bark 

 of the trunk and large limbs of a tree, hanging head downward beneath a 

 branch or swinging on the end of a pine cone, always prying into the cracks 

 and crevices of bark, bud and leaf and extracting the tiny insects or the 

 tinier eggs which are a constant threat to the welfare of orchard, park and 

 grove. 



Numerous critical studies of its food have been made, some of them 

 involving the destruction of many Chickadee lives in order that the 

 stomach contents might be carefully determined. The results of these 

 studies are surprisingly uniform. Even during winter at least half the 

 Chickadee's food consists of insects and their eggs, and we have no bird 

 which eats so many insect eggs summer or winter as this bird. In studies 

 made a,t the New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Station during 

 winter it was found that the eggs of plant-lice made up more than one- 

 fifth of the food, and apparently the only possible harm done was the 

 consumption of a compai'atively small number of spiders and their eggs, 

 these forming perhaps 5 percent of the entire stomach contents. It was 

 shown that often more than 450 eggs of plant-lice were eaten by a single 

 Cliickadee in the course of a day. Among other eggs found were those of 

 the tent-caterpillar and the fall canker-worm, while larvae of the codling 

 moth and bark beetles of the family scolytida? were eaten freely. 



Under the author's direction, Mr. E. D. Sanderson examined the stomachs 

 of twenty-eight Michigan Chickadees, nineteen in winter and nine in spi-ing. 



