ACADIAN CHICKADEE 377 



of both species were on the wing. We saw the chickadees feeding 

 their young, and, through the kindness of John Crowell, the owner of the 

 island, we were allowed to collect a few specimens. 



Courtship.— At Averill, Vt., on May 24, 1915, Frederic H. Kennard 

 watched a pair of these chickadees in what seemed to be courtship be- 

 havior. His notes state that "the male was very thoughtful and atten- 

 tive to his little mate, whom he fed frequently. She kept up an almost 

 continuous twittering call, and would flutter her little wings and ruffle 

 her feathers on his near approach. We saw him give her several green 

 cankerworms and many other small bugs; and I saw them copulate 

 once." 



Nesting. — W. J. Brown writes to me that the Acadian chickadee is 

 fairly well distributed in the County of Matane on the south shore of the 

 Gulf of St. Lawrence, where he has found some ten nests. The lowest 

 nest was one foot from the ground in an old spruce stub in a bog, and 

 the highest elevation was about 8 feet. Out of the ten nests under 

 observation, tv/o had the entrance hole on the top of the stub, facing 

 all kinds of weather, while the others had the hole at the side of a 

 dead stub. All the nests were made of rabbit hair, with some feathers, 

 well put togetlier. 



Philipp and Bowdish (1919) record three nests found in New 

 Brunswick as follows: "On June 5, 1917, a nest was found, nearly or 

 quite completed, in a natural cavity in a c.edar stump about two feet 

 from the ground. On June 16 the bird was sitting hard on five eggs, 

 and was persuaded to come out only with great difficulty. As she laid 

 no more, this was apparently her full laying. On June 24 a nest con- 

 taining seven quite small young was found in a knot hole in a small 

 live spruce. On June 13, 1918, another nest with young was found in 

 a cavity in the top of a dead and rotten stub, about ten feet from the 

 ground. This nest was very near the site of the 1917 nest with young, 

 very possibly belonging to the same pair of birds." 



Mrs. Eleanor R. Pettingill (1937), with her husband, Dr. Olin S. 

 Pettingill, Jr., had an interesting experience with a family of Acadian 

 chickadees on Grand Manan, New Brunswick. The nest was about 10 

 feet from the ground in a hole, made perhaps by a hairy woodpecker, 

 in a tall dead spruce stump. The nest contained seven young that were 

 "fitted compactly together on a comfortable bedding of birch-bark 

 shreds and bits of moss. The base of the nest was about 6 inches 

 below the entrance." 



Aaron C. Bagg (1939) discovered a nest containing young in Somer- 

 set County, Maine. He writes: 



