The Audubon Societies 289 



the year round. Chickadees are very clean and push their young to one side 

 when cleaning house. Their nest is made of cottony vegetable fibers, animal 

 hair, wool, mosses, feathers, and insect cocoons. The pair take turns at sit- 

 ting and, as they are the same color, one cannot tell the difference. The 

 male feeds the female when she is sitting. When one peeps into the nest, 

 the sitting bird makes a peculiar puffing sound which makes one draw 

 back and shut one's eyes. Both birds sing, but the male's song is better. 

 Their song is chick- a-dee-dee-dee-dee with an occasional dee-dee or chee-dee, 

 while in spring they utter a call, phcebe. They have several other notes of 

 minor importance. "Their call has a touch of unspeakable tenderness and 

 tideUty." 



Our friend eats larvae and eggs which it gets from trees, and it has been 

 figured that one of them destroys 138,750 cankerworms' eggs in twenty-five 

 days. In winter the Chickadee welcomes food put out for it, such as crumbs, 

 sunflower seed, fat pork, raw bone, suet, and corn, while a picture that I have 

 seen shows one on a piece of cake. 



To attract Chickadees, ordinary bird-boxes may be put up. The dimensions 

 are 12 by 4 by 5 inches, and the hole should be 1% inches in diameter and should 

 be near the top. No perch is needed. This house will do for Wrens also. 



The Chickadee belongs to the Titmouse family, and its brothers (birds of 

 the same genus) are the Carolina and Acadian Chickadees. Its cousins are 

 Titmice, Nuthatches, and Verdin. Its other names are the Black-capped Tit- 

 mouse or Tit. Its ornithological name is Penthesles atricapillus, Family 

 ParidcB, Order Passeres. 



It is a great acrobat and could turn Flycatcher if it chose. It has no harm- 

 ful habits, few natural enemies, and is most often seen in dry country. 



[Accompanying this unusually painstaking and interesting article is the following 

 explanatory note from a "grown-up:" "The whole thing was entirely a labor of love, 

 initiated and type-written by the boy because of his admiration of the Chickadee. The 

 boy consulted, as he told me, 'everything he could lay his hands on.' If it would serve as 

 an instructive example for other boys and girls to follow, its publication may be worth 

 while." The kind of bird-study represented in the foregoing article is sometimes, but 

 rarely, followed in schools where bird- and nature-study are allowed a fixed period a 

 week. Correlated with drawing and reading, a class can, during a year's work, accom- 

 plish something very creditable in the way of compiling and putting together neatly and 

 artistically a small booklet, illustrating birds and their habits. It seems very much 

 worth while to give this method a trial in schools where opportunities for field-study are 

 of necessity limited. — A. H. W.] 



ANOTHER METHOD OF INDOOR STUDY 



I have had Bird-Lore for three years, and it is always welcome. I enjoy 

 reading it very much. 



I am in the sixth grade and have agriculture as one of my studies. 



One day the class had a lesson on birds. We had to find who could get the 



