Chickadee Ways 51 



the nits that have ensconced themselves in the buds or 

 foliage. Let his flexile perch sway in the wind as it will, 

 he is safe, for if the twig should break or his hold should 

 slip, which seldom occurs, he can recover himself at once 

 by spreading his nimble wings, wheeling about, and 

 alighting on a perch below. Ah, yes! the tomtit is the 

 embodiment and poetry of nimbleness. 



But he is more than a mere feathered gentleman; he 

 is an extremely useful citizen. Prof. E. D. Sanderson 

 published a valuable article in " The Auk" for April 1898, 

 in which he proved that this bird serves a most useful 

 purpose as an insecticide. He examined the craws of 

 twenty-eight chickadees, nineteen of them secured in the 

 winter and nine in the spring. During the winter 70.7 

 per cent of the food found in these stomachs was animal, 

 while in the spring no vegetable matter was found at all, 

 the birds subsisting entirely on insects and their eggs 

 and larvae. By far the larger part of the insects thus 

 destroyed were of the noxious species that bore into the 

 bark and wood of the trees or sting the fruit. An orchard 

 in which several chickadees had taken up their abode 

 one winter and spring was so well cleared of canker worms 

 that an excellent yield of fruit was grown, whereas the 

 trees of other orchards in the neighborhood were largely 

 defoliated by the destructive worms, and there was no 

 yield of fruit. 



Professor Sanderson made an interesting estimate of 

 the economic value of our little scavengers. In the state 

 of Michigan, where his observations were made, he thinks 



