17 



case bearers, leaf miners and many injurious minute insects. 

 They also open decaying twigs infested by borers, removing 

 them with certainty, though with less skill than the wood- 

 peckers exhibit. Nor is their work confined wholly to the 

 trees and shrubbery, for in the early spring, when the snow 

 has gone and the warm sun begins to cause the first stir of life 

 among hibernating insects hidden in the forest floor, the chick- 

 adees descend to the ground, where they search among the 

 leaves, extracting worms from decaying chestnuts or acorns 

 which have been overlooked by jays and squirrels, or digging 

 out pupse which have either hibernated among the leaves on 

 the ground or fallen with them from the trees. Such insect 

 food as given above forms the main part of this bird's suste- 

 nance, nor has it any bad habits, so far as known. When 

 driven by extremity, it may eat a few bits from worthless apples 

 frozen upon the trees, or pick up a few fragments of corn or 

 oats by the roadside or in barnyard or poultry yard; but appar- 

 ently it prefers, in such cases, the berries of the sumach, and 

 never injures cultivated fruit or grain of any value. It has 

 none of the bad habits of some of its European relatives. Its 

 nesting habits and its confiding nature led to the belief that it 

 might be so domesticated as to become as attached to our 

 homes, in time, as the English sparrow is to-day. What a bene- 

 fit might have been conferred on our city parks, had we induced 

 these birds to breed there, instead of importing the redoubt- 

 able sparrow. 



European titmice breed quite freely in boxes put up for 

 them, and their numbers can be increased readily under man's 

 protection. The American crested titmouse is said to breed 

 occasionally about human habitations; but the chickadee, our 

 most common titmouse, has mainly held aloof from human 

 dwellings during the breeding season. 



Thirty years ago, before the English sparrows became plenti- 

 ful, this bird bred in the hollow trunks of old apple trees in 

 orchards or dooryards, and does so to-day where the sparrows 

 have not obtained a foothold; but it has been driven from such 

 localities by the sparrow, returning to its old haunts mainly in 

 the winter, when sparrows resort much to the city or village 

 streets. Chickadees may be induced at times to build in par- 



