BLACK-CAPPED CHICKADEE 329 



it fast over the twig by superior weight, and proceeded, while hanging back 

 downward, to dissect its prey. This is one of the most skillful acrobatic feats 

 that a bird can perform — although I have seen a Chickadee drop over backward 

 from a branch, in pursuit of an insect, catch it, and, turning an almost complete 

 somersault in the air, strike right side up again on the leaning trunk of the 

 tree. Indeed, the complete somersault is an every-day accomplishment of this 

 gifted little fowl, and it often swings completely round a branch, like a human 

 acrobat taking the "giant swing." Although the Chickadee ordinarily is no 

 flycatcher, it can easily follow and catch in the air any insect that drops from 

 its clutch. 



William Leon Dawson (Dawson and Bowles, 1909), writing of the 

 Oregon chickadee, a subspecies of the black-capped, gives this lively 

 accpunt of its activities: "Chickadee refuses to look down for long 

 upon the world; or, indeed, to look at any one thing from any direc- 

 tion for more than two consecutive twelfths of a second. 'Any old 

 side up without care,* is the label he bears; and so with anything he 

 meets, be it a pine-cone, an alder catkin, or a bug-bearing branchlet, 

 topside, bottomside, inside, outside, all is right side to the nimble 

 Chickadee. * * * Blind-man's buff, hide-and-seek, and tag are merry 

 games enough when played out on one plane, but when staged in 

 three dimensions, with a labyrinth of interlacing branches for hazard, 

 only the blithe bird whose praises we sing could possibly master their 

 intricacies." 



There are many instances recorded of the tameness of individual 

 chickadees. The following, by John Woodcock (1913), is a good 

 example : 



Although I had fed the Chickadees in winter for several years, none of them 

 were tame enough to feed from the hand until the spring of 1906. A pair were 

 nesting in one of my bird-boxes, and, as I was standing near the nest, one of 

 the birds came toward me. I threw a piece of nut to it, which it picked up and 

 ate. Then I held a piece on my finger-tips, and it came almost without hesitation 

 and carried it oflF; this was repeated several times. Two days later he would 

 perch on my finger and take a nut from between my teeth, or would sit on 

 a branch and let me touch him while he was eating a nut. * ♦ * 



He grew very tame that winter, and would often swing head downward from 

 the peak of my cap, or cling to my lips and peck at my teeth. If I held my 

 hand out with nothing in it, he would always hop to my thumb, and peck the nail 

 two or three times, then hold his head on one side, and look into my eyes, as if to 

 ask me what I meant. ♦ ♦ ♦ 



I tamed several more Chickadees that winter; eight out of twelve, as nearly as 

 we could count, were quite tame. 



It was rather amusing when I took the 22 rifle to shoot rabbits! After the 

 first shot was fired, I was attended by several Chickadees. They made aiming 

 almost impKJSsible, for every time I raised the rifle, one or two birds would 

 perch on the barrel completely hiding the sights. 



Many of us have had somewhat similar experiences. 



