280 THE MOUNTAIN CHICKADEE. 
IT IS either accident or the methodical habit of scrutinizing every 
passing bird which first reveals to you the Mountain Chickadee. He is quite 
similar in general appearance and conduct to the foregoing species, altho the 
white superciliary line does confer a little air of distinction when you look 
closely. His notes, so far as observed, are not different; and he exhibits 
the cheerful confiding nature which makes the name of Chickadee beloved. 
Gambeli is a bird of the foothills as well as of the mountains, and is 
confined almost exclusively to the East-side. I have not seen it on Puget 
Sound; but a dead bird was once brought by one of the school children to 
Miss A. L. Pollock, of Seattle. 
Both of the nests which have come under my observation have been 
placed in decayed stumps not above three feet from the ground. One, in 
a wild cherry stub in northern Okanogan County, contained fresh eggs on 
the 18th day of May. ‘Their color had been pure white, but they were much 
soiled thru contact with the miscellaneous stuff which made up the lining 
of the cavity: moss, cow-hair, rabbits’ wool, wild ducks’ down, hawks’ casts, 
etc. The birds were not especially solicitous, altho once the female flew 
almost in my face as I was preparing the eggs for the cabinet. And then 
she sat quietly for several minutes on a twig not above a foot from my eyes. 
On Senator Turner’s grounds in Spokane—by permission—we came 
upon a nestful of well-grown young, on the 5th of June, 1906. The nest was 
two feet up in a stump, concealed by a clump of second-growth maples, pic- 
turesquely nestled at the base of a volcanic knob. Upon first discovery the 
parent birds both appeared with bills full of larvae, and scolded daintily. 
Finally, after several feints, one entered the nesting hole and fed, with our 
eyes not two feet removed. Photography was impossible because of the 
subdued light, but it was an unfailing source of interest to see the busy 
parents hurrying to and fro and bringing incredible quantities of provisions 
in the shape of moths’ eggs, spiders, wood-boring grubs, and winged creatures 
of a hundred sorts. Evidently the gardener knew what he was about in 
sheltering these unpaid assistants. Why, when it comes to horticulture, 
three pairs of Chickadees are equal to one Scotchman any day. 
The young were fully fledged, and the irrepressible of the flock (there 
is always an irrepressible) spent a good deal of time at the entrance shifting 
upon his toes, and wishing he dared venture out. The old birds fed incess- 
antly, usually alighting upon the bark at one side of the hole and debating 
for a moment before plunging into the wooden cavern, whence issued a 
chorus of childish entreaties. 
The next morning our Chickadees had all flown, and upon breaking into 
the abandoned home we found a nest chamber some six inches in diameter, 
with its original warm lining mingled with fallen punk and trodden into an 
indistinguishable mass by the restless feet of the chick Chickadees. A special 
