CHICKADEE. 
The Chickadee is a noisy, restless little acrobat as well 
as an educated musician, and his appearance with a 
dozen of his fellows in the pine-tree near my cottage is 
the signal for a circus performance with an orchestral 
accompaniment, including (if it is the fall season) the 
penny-trumpet tones of a friendly Nuthatch or two. 
There is at once a Babel of squeaks and chattering, and 
an obligato yank, yank which announces the entry in 
the ring of Mr. White-vested Nuthatch, who proceeds at 
once to walk upside-down! Then the nimble Chicka- 
dees shake up the old pine-tree into active life until 
every green needle quivers with excitement, and the 
little gray-costumed tumblers are at it with all the 
sprightliness of which they are capable. That means 
that most of them are wrong end up, the others are bal- 
ancing sideways, and that while you are endeavoring to 
adjust your opera-glass every one has turned a summer- 
gault and flown to the other side of the tree, after having 
devoured every insect’s egg that could be found on the 
nearer side! It is a lively performance and the ‘‘ band” 
continues the squeaks and the ‘‘ dee dees” until you in- 
terpose the magic influence of two pure whistled high 
tones, when there is a momentary pause and you are an- 
swered—probably in analogous tones: 
5 R 
GA Wak CATT oD | 
WY, Cea ST (a ] A = 
Y 7s) PE ET | ET ES 
(35 LAMBS aia | Re SS eal al 
‘I whistled— The bird responded= 
I have more than once persuaded the Chickadee to drop 
his own notes and adopt mine, but I have never yet been 
able to inveigle him back again to the first ones. 
Wilson says of the Chickadee;—*‘ it has been found on 
the western coast of America as far north as lat. 62°; it 
is common at Hudson’s Bay, and most plentiful there 
during winter, as it then approaches the settlements in 
quest of food. Protected by a remarkably thick covering 
of long, soft, downy plumage, it braves the severest cold 
of those northern regions.” In Central Park, N. Y., in 
the Arnold Arboretum, near Boston, in the White Moun- 
tains, and in the vicinity of Gloucester, Mass., Chicka- 
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