24 THE SECOND BOOK OF BIRDS 
When you see a chickadee scrambling over a 
tree, hanging head down with all sorts of antics, 
he is no doubt hunting out the eggs. These 
eggs, if left, would hatch out into hungry in- 
sects, to eat the leaves or fruit, or to injure and 
perhaps kill the tree. The nuthatch clears up 
the trunk and large limbs, and the chickadee 
does the same for the small branches and around 
the leaves. 
It has been found out that one pair of chicka- 
dees with their young will destroy five hundred 
pests, such as caterpillars, flies, and grubs, every 
day. No man could do so much, if he gave his 
whole time to it. Besides, he could not go over 
the whole tree as a bird does, without doing harm 
to it. A chickadee hops along the small branches 
and twigs, looking under every leaf, sometimes 
hanging head down to see the under side, and 
picks up every insect or egg. Among his dain- 
ties are the eggs of the leaf-rolling caterpillar, 
the canker-worm, and the apple-tree moth, — all 
very troublesome creatures. 
The Turrep Tirmovuss is more common in the 
South and West than his cousin, the chickadee, 
and he is one of the prettiest of the family. He 
is dressed in soft gray, with a fine, showy, pointed 
crest. His ways are something like the chicka- 
