The Burgess Bird Book for Children 



never happened to think of it before. Just the 

 same, I don't see how you find food enough on the 

 trees when they are all bare in winter." 



"Dee, dee, Chickadee! 

 Leave that matter just to me," 



chuckled Tommy Tit. "You ought to know by 

 this time, Peter Rabbit, that a lot of different kinds 

 of bugs lay eggs on the twigs and trunks of trees. 

 Those eggs would stay there all winter and in the 

 spring hatch out into lice and worms if it were not 

 for me. Why, sometimes in a single day I find and 

 eat almost five hundred eggs of those little green 

 plant lice that do so much damage in the spring 

 and summer. Then there are little worms that 

 bore in just under the bark, and there are other 

 creatures who sleep the winter away in little cracks 

 in the bark. Oh, there is plenty for me to do in the 

 winter. I am one of the policemen of the trees. 

 Downy and Hairy the Woodpeckers, Seep-Seep the 

 Brown Creeper and Yank- Yank the Nuthatch are 

 others. If we didn't stay right here on the job all 

 winter, I don't know what would become of the Old 

 Orchard." 



Tommy Tit hung head downward from a twig 



while he picked some tiny insect eggs from the 



under side of it. It didn't seem to make the least 



difference to Tommy whether he was right side up 



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