336 BULLETIN 191, UNITED STAl-fiS NATIONAL MUSEUM 



migration there is very irregular. On many days there would be none at 

 all, and then for several days there might be as many as 300 or 400 of 

 these birds. He says: "Usually there are none, but once in a while there 

 is a flight, perhaps (probably) endeavoring to cross the lake; it takes 

 some time to taper off this flight and return to the normal status of none 

 at all. * * * I have always thought this chickadee matter very interesting, 

 and can still remember the first big flight, when, after years of scarcity, 

 all of a sudden chickadees were everywhere; it was fun to watch them 

 down at the last trees, making ineffective little flights up into the air and 

 then settling back into the trees. They had not enough of the migratory 

 instinct to get across. These birds were, doubtless, from stock bred 

 south of the Georgian Bay, and they had never crossed any large body 

 of water." 



Mr. Wallace (1941) cites two cases where banded chickadees have 

 been taken at 50 and 200 miles, respectively, southwest of the point of 

 banding; and he says that there are six returns recorded in Washington 

 that might be regarded as long range. 



Winter. — Chickadees, collected in small loose flocks, spend the winter 

 roving about the woodland. The birds scatter out a good deal, so much 

 .so that they must often lose sight of one another, but they keep con- 

 tinually calling to one another, using their fine, lisping note or the louder 

 chickadee, and thus indicating the direction in which the flock is moving. 

 They seldom wander far from the protection of trees and shrubs but 

 occasionally venture out a little way into a field or marsh if there are 

 isolated bushes there in which they can perch and feed. As the flock 

 moves along, each bird examines minutely bark, twigs, and branches, 

 searching for tiny bits of food — spider's eggs, cocoons, or other dormant 

 insect life. The flocks are not large, being seldom composed of more 

 than a dozen birds, but they generally contain too many birds to represent 

 only a single ia.mi\y. 



Whenever we go out in the country we meet these cheery little roving 

 flocks — pleasant companions who enliven the dreary. New England 

 winter. Mr. Wallace's (1941) studies indicate that winter flocks "are 

 remarkably constant in individual composition, the same individuals 

 remaining together day after day through the winter, and, as far as sur- 

 vival permits, winter after winter." 



DISTRIBUTION 



Range. — North America in general, from the limit of trees south to 

 the central United States ; not migratory. 



The range of the chickadee extends north to southern Alaska (near 

 Holy Cross Mission, Knik, and Valdez) ; southern Yukon (Lake 



