160 THE PRANKS OF THE TUFTED TITMOUSE. 



the wing, or extracting a worm or larva from a 

 crevice in the bark, or picking nits from the under 

 side of a leaf like a warbler or a kinglet. Of 

 course he eats insects, but he is also in part a vege- 

 tarian. More than once have I seen him pick a 

 dogwood berr}^ from its stem, deftly scale off the 

 carmine pulp, and then, taking the " pit " in his 

 claws, hold it on a limb, crack it and then bore 

 out the kernel, which he eats with a relish. Be- 

 neath the dogwood-trees I often find the ground 

 strewn with the shells of these broken pits. 



One day while watching a chickadee nibbling at 

 a tidbit that he held in his claws, I became ex- 

 tremely curious to know what it was. A way to 

 find out soon opened. Suddenly the morsel slipped 

 from his grasp and fell to the ground, the bird 

 darting after it in a twinkle. At the same mo- 

 ment I made a spring for the spot — it was only a 

 few feet away — and frightened him off before he 

 could get his eye on his lost luncheon. It turned 

 out to be a grain of corn, partly nibbled off at the 

 end, which the little thief had pilfered from my 

 neighbor's corn-field. 



On another occasion I saw one of these birds 

 making a meal on some viand that he seemed to 

 think very good. My curiosity got the better of 



