JOURNAL OF MAINE ORNITHOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



35 



gardless of the plentiful supply the 

 casual observer might easily notice 

 the selfish spirit that dominated these 

 pensioners of my bounty. The chick- 

 adees drove each other away — al- 

 though they occasionally ate togeth- 

 er upon the pork rinds as shown in 

 the picture. There appeared to be a 

 natural reverence for size among the 

 different species. The nuthatches 

 chased the chickadees and while they 

 were at it sometimes a woodpecker 

 would arrive and take possession of 

 the branch. Of the different kinds of 

 food furnished, the woodpeckers and 

 nuthatches appeared to prefer the 

 suet. 



By the use of twine I hung pieces 

 of suet four or five inches below the 

 branch. This arrangement soon be- 

 came a study with the woodpeckers 

 as to how they could reach it. At 

 first they would alight upon the 

 branch from which the suet was sus- 

 pended, and by hanging to the under 

 side try every way to reach it. One 

 seized the string attached to a piece 

 of sixet and shook it with his bill as if 

 he hoped to displace the suet. But 

 finally they would fly from the branch 

 and alight upon the suet, to which 

 they would cling with their long toes 

 and when it was of sufficient length 

 they would make use of their stiff 

 pointed tail feathers for a prop as 

 when upon a tree trunk. If the piece 

 of suet was too short to allow this use 

 of the tail they would bring it against 

 the end of the suet in such a position 

 as oftentimes to be at a right angle 

 with the bodj'. As soon as the wood- 

 pecker alighted on the suet his pe- 

 culiar movements would cause it to 

 turn rapidly until the string became 

 tightly twisted when the movement 

 was reversed. They appeared to en- 

 joy this "merry go 'round" in which 

 they frequently indulged, taking, oc- 

 casionally as they rode, a large piece 

 of suet, which seemed to afford them 

 a double pleasure. The various po- 

 sitions of the woodpeckers while 

 making these revolutions and their 

 strange behavior in endeavoring to 

 adapt themselves to conditions to 

 which they were evidently unaccus- 

 tomed was altogether the most amus- 

 ing and interesting feature of my 

 observations. 



The industrious little chickadees 

 preferred the raw pork rinds to the 

 suet. These w©re cut in strips two or 



three inches wide and about ten 

 inches in length and one end fastened 

 to the branch with tacks. The rinds 

 soon freeze and the chickadees enjoy 

 hammering them for the little meat 

 they get much as a dog enjoys gnaw- 

 ing a bone with little or no meat on 

 it. However, nothing seems to 

 tempt the appetites of these birds 

 like the seeds of the sunflower. The 

 quantity of these seeds which a 

 chickadee will eat during a single day 

 well illustrates its capacity for food. 

 They test every seed by squeezing it 

 in their little bills and when a perfect 

 one is found they fly to a tree and 

 holding the seed between their toes 

 and the branch, hammer it until its 

 covering can be removed. The 

 chickadees and woodpeckers were 

 frequent visitors during cold and 

 stormy weather but on pleasant days 

 they were accustomed to foraging 

 in the woodlands. On account of the 

 extreme cold of the present winter 

 most of the different species which 

 have previously been winter visitors 

 in Northern New England have been 

 with us in considerable numbers. In 

 many places birds have been report- 

 ed as dying from scarcity of food and 

 several bird lovers have endeavored 

 to encourage school children to at- 

 tract them to their homes by supply- 

 ing them with food. 



A. C. DIKE. 



Bristol, Vt. 



[The above subject is a veiy inter- 

 esting one and while we have had no 

 time or opportunity to experiment 

 along this line several siich cases 

 have come under our observation 

 this long, cold winter. Owing to the 

 extreme and unheard of long, cold 

 weather, the ice became frozen in 

 Casco Bay, about Portland and vicin- 

 ity, thus covering over the extensive 

 feeding grounds about the harbor, of 

 immense flocks of gulls and ducks, 

 there were very large flocks of these 

 winter birds reported as starving for 

 want of food. Several observers fed 

 the flocks near Martin's Point Bridge, 

 near the U. S. Marine Hospital, thus 

 affording fine opportunity for obser- 

 vation of these birds. 



One cold day this winter I called at 

 Mr. Palmer's store. Mr. Palmer lives 

 alone over the store in Cornville. He 

 told me I ought to see his Chicker- 

 birds feed. I went outside and there 

 were three chickadees feeding out of 



