344 BULLETIN 191, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



buff, except on rump and upper tail-coverts, where very faint, and white 

 of sides and flanks very faintly, if at all, tinged with buff; in fall and 

 winter plumage the bufty tinge on sides and flanks very much paler 

 than in P. a. septentrionalis." 



Under the name long-tailed chickadee, with which this race was in- 

 cluded by some of the earlier writers, Dr. E. W. Nelson (1887) writes: 



Throughout the wooded region of Alaska, from the moist, heavily-wooded coast 

 in the Sitkan and Kadiak region north throughout the entire Yukon and adjoining 

 country, this bird is a common resident. Specimens were secured both at Cook's 

 Inlet and Kadiak by Dr. Bean. I secured specimens from various places throughout 

 the northern portion of the Territory, at times even along the barren sea-coast, 

 where it only found' shelter in the stunted alder or weed patches. Its visits to 

 the coast, however, were mainly in roving parties during spring or fall. A few 

 days of mild weather, at this season, are almost sure to bring some of these fa- 

 miliar birds about the coast settlements, and its familiar dce-dce-dee is a welcome 

 sound on the clear frosty mornings which usher in the stinging blasts of winter, 

 or announce the approach of spring. One meets it again while traveling through 

 the silent snow-clad forests of the Yukon, as he tramps wearisomely on, until the 

 mind is unconsciously affected by the lack of animation. At such times, as we 

 move mechanically forward, the shrill, strident note of the Chickadee, as the bird 

 eyes us from its swinging perch on a bush close at hand, breaks the silence and 

 diverts the mind. Frequently the chorus of their Lilliputian cries arise from the 

 bushes all about as the jolly company of harlequins swing and balance their tiny 

 bodies and pass on as though too busily intent upon affairs of importance to stop. 

 After their passage the forest resumes its cheerless silence once more, and the 

 hea\7^ breatliing of the icy wind through the tree-tops or the sharp report of the 

 contracting ice in the river are the only accompaniments of the toilsome march. 



I have no information on the nesting habits, eggs, food, and other 

 habits of the Yukon chickadee. 



PABUS CAROLINENSIS CAROLINENSIS .\n*TiT>on 

 CAROLINA CHICKADEE 



Plate 54 

 Contributed by Edward von Siebold Dingle 



HABITS 



The Carolina chickadee, one of the four birds discovered by Audubon 

 in the coastal part of South Carolina, is the low-country represerrtative 

 of the Boreal chickadee (atricapillus) ; yet carolinensis by no means 

 confines itself to the Atlantic and Gulf coastal plains. It ascends the 

 Blue Ridge Mountains probably higher than 5,000 feet, according to 

 Brewster (1886), thus falling short by 1,500 or 1,600 feet of attaining 

 the highest point in its range — Mount Mitchell, with an altitude of 

 6,684 feet. Brewster continues: "Common, and very generally dis- 



