IN THE FLAT-WOODS. 1 



cidedly finchlike, so much so that some of 

 the notes, taken by themselves, would have 

 been ascribed without hesitation to the gold- 

 finch or the pine finch, had I heard them in 

 New England ; and even as things were, I 

 was more than once deceived for the moment. 

 As for the birds themselves, they were evi- 

 dently a cheerful and thrifty race, much 

 more numerous than the red-cockaded wood- 

 peckers, and much less easily overlooked 

 than the pine-wood sparrows. I seldom 

 entered the flat-woods anywhere without 

 finding them. They seek their food largely 

 about the leafy ends of the pine branches, 

 resembling the Canadian nuthatches in this 

 respect, so that it is only on rare occasions 

 that one sees them creeping about the trunks 

 or larger limbs. Unlike their two Northern 

 relatives, they are eminently social, often 

 traveling in small flocks, even in the breed- 

 ing season, and keeping up an almost inces- 

 sant chorus of shrill twitters as they flit 

 hither and thither through the woods. The 

 first one to come near me was full of inquisi- 

 tiveness ; he flew back and forth past my head, 

 exactly as chickadees do in a similar mood, 

 and once seemed almost ready to alight on 



