TUFTED TITMOUSE 229 



and the Downy Woodpecker, I am convinced that there 

 is a food-seeking alliance between them. Repeatedly, 

 when I visited a feeding station, all three of these birds 

 came at once and each time the Downy Woodpecker fed 

 first, then the Titmouse, and at last the Chickadee. On 

 one occasion, when the Titmouse was helping himself, 

 a Downy lighted on the body of the tree, ten feet above 

 the suet, and by a gradual spiral descended by four-inch 

 bounces until he reached the suet. The Titmouse, in the 

 meantime, had departed. 



The Titmouse has a call-note of alarm that, I have 

 heard, causes all of the winter birds, Juncos, Chick- 

 adees, Song Sparrows, Downy Woodpeckers and Card- 

 inals, to flock around the caller in an inquiring attitude, 

 as if to ask the source of worries. If Tit flies to another 

 tree they all follow and perch near until assured that 

 all is well ; then they return to their usual haunts. (Fig. 

 135.) 



