Some Winter Guests 7 



possible that a bird could show much more 

 confidence than that, but I thought I'd put him 

 to still another test. Leaving the nut just where 

 it was, I calmly folded my hands behind my back 

 leaving him no perch at all. It didn't feaze him 

 one bit, for the next moment he alighted on my 

 lip and helped himself to the nut as though he 

 had been used to feeding in this way all his life. 



When we came to New Hampshire we found 

 the chickadees just as friendly. A flock made 

 our house its headquarters and the first time that 

 Mrs. Baynes went out to feed them she succeeded 

 in getting five of them to alight upon her at once. 

 She used English walnuts and a little patience. 



On one occasion I was in the garden with a 

 rifle practising at a mark, when a chickadee 

 alighted on the front sight, tipped over and 

 deliberately looked down the barrel, as much as 

 to say, "I wonder what there is in that/' 

 Sometimes when I am in the woods, far from the 

 house, the chickadees will come to me. I re- 

 member one bitter winter day I was sitting in the 

 snow having my lunch, and the chickadees 

 swarmed about me, alighting on my cap, my 

 shoulders, and my snowshoes, which I had taken 

 off and stuck in the snow. I pulled a sandwich 

 from my pocket and as I put it to my lips, a 

 chickadee came down out of a tree overhead, 



