CHICKADEE 369 



to pine bough, till within four or five feet, occasionally 

 lisping a note. 



Oct. 10, 1851. As I stood amid the witch-hazels 

 near Flint's Pond, a flock of a dozen chickadees came 

 flitting and singing about me with great ado, — a most 

 cheering and enlivening sound, — with incessant day- 

 day-day and a fine wiry strain betweenwhiles, flitting 

 ever nearer and nearer and nearer, inquisitively, till 

 the boldest was within five feet of me ; then suddenly, 

 their curiosity satiated, they flit by degrees further 

 away and disappear, and I hear with regret their re- 

 treating day-day-days. 



March 10, 1852. Heard the phoebe note of the 

 chickadee to-day for the first time. I had at first heard 

 their day-day-day ungratefully, — ah! you but carry 

 my thoughts back to winter, — but anon I found that 

 they too had become spring birds ; they had changed 

 their note. Even they feel the influence of spring. 



Oct. 23, 1852. The chickadees flit along, following 

 me inquisitively a few rods with lisping, tinkling note, 

 — flit within a few feet of me from curiosity, head 

 downward on the pines. 



March 22, 1853. I hear the phoebe note of the 

 chickadee, one taking it up behind another as in a catch, 

 phe-hee phe-hee. 



Dec. 1, 1853. Those trees and shrubs which retain 

 their withered leaves through the winter — shrub oaks 

 and young white, red, and black oaks, the lower branches 

 of larger trees of the last-mentioned species, hornbeam, 

 etc., and young hickories — seem to form an interme- 

 diate class between deciduous and evergreen trees. They 



