CHICKADEE. 43 
dressed out in a black hood whose sombre tone is 
relieved by whitish side pieces, a vest to match 
the sides of the hood, and a dark gray coat for 
contrast. Clinging to the side of a tree one min- 
ute, and hanging upside down pecking at the 
moss on a branch the next, it is flitting about 
hither and thither so busily that unless you draw 
near you will hardly catch a glimpse of its black 
cap and gray and white clothes. You need not 
fear scaring it, for it has the most winning confi- 
dence in man, inspecting the trees in the front 
yard or those in the woods with the same trustful 
unconcern. 
You are inclined to think that the busy chick- 
adee takes no time to meditate, and sees only the 
bright side of life ; and when you hear its plain- 
tive minor whistle piercing the woods, you wonder 
if it can have come from the same little creature 
whose merry chick-a-dee-dee you know so well. 
Thoreau calls this plaintive whistle the spring 
pheebe’s note of the chickadee, and gives its win- 
ter call as day, day, day. When happy, the 
chickadee is the best company one could hope for 
on a winter’s walk; when busy it seems to realize 
perpetual motion; and when it gives up its ordi- 
nary pursuits and prepares to rear a family, it 
goes to work in the same whole-souled fashion. 
Leaving civilization with its many distractions, it 
eoes into the woods, and that is the last you see 
or hear of it until fall. Even there it is not con- 
