28 



WOOD NOTES WILD. 



a pair of chickadees on a limb of a small tree. The 

 song came from one of them ; and when he shot up and 

 away, he left me with a new understanding of the value 

 of purity of tone. Nearly all small birds sing rapidly, 

 too rapidly for appreciative hearing ; but this little song- 

 ster somehow has found out that one pure minim is 

 worth a whole strain of staccato demi-semi-quavers. 



The chickadees sometimes employ a delightful form of 

 response in their singing : 



