416 NOTES ON NEW ENGLAND BIRDS 



showing his white robe, kept up an incessant loud tap- 

 ping on another pitch pine. All at once an active little 

 brown creeper makes its appearance, a small, rather 

 slender bird, with a long tail and sparrow-colored back, 

 and white beneath. It commences at the bottom of a 

 tree and glides up very rapidly, then suddenly darts to 

 the bottom of a new tree and repeats the same move- 

 ment, not resting long in one place or on one tree. These 

 birds are all feeding and flitting along together, but 

 the chickadees are the most numerous and the most con- 

 fiding. I observe that three of the four thus associated, 

 viz. the chickadee, nuthatch, and woodpecker, have black 

 crowns, — at least the first two, very conspicuous black 

 caps. I cannot but think that this sprightly association 

 and readiness to burst into song has to do with the 

 prospect of spring, — more light and warmth and thaw- 

 ing weather. The titmice keep up an incessant faint 

 tinkling tchip : now and then one utters a lively day 

 day day, and once or twice one commenced a gurgling 

 strain quite novel, startling, and springlike. 



March 1, 1854. As for the birds of the past winter : 

 I have seen but three hawks, — one early in the winter 

 and two lately ; have heard the hooting owl pretty often 

 late in the afternoon. Crows have not been numerous, 

 but their cawing was heard chiefly in pleasanter morn- 

 ings. Blue jays have blown the trumpet of winter as 

 usual, but they, as all birds, are most lively in spring- 

 like days. The chickadees have been the prevailing 

 bird. The partridge common enough. One ditcher tells 

 me that he saw two robins in Moore's Swamp a month 

 ago. I have not seen a quail, though a few have been 



