CHICKADEE 69 



Chickadee who came to us for foocl used to get so 

 preoccupied eating that he would let me walk 

 close under him on snowshoes. 



But though the birds are glad of the dainties 

 we may offer them, they are quite capable of 

 finding food for themselves, even in the bleakest 

 winter weather, for they live on grubs, and on 

 the eggs of moths hidden under the bark of trees. 

 They are particularly fond of the eggs of the 

 cankerworm moth (Fig. 30). Mr. Forbush of 

 the Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture 

 calculated that one 

 Chickadee in one 

 day would destroy 

 5,550 eggs, and 

 in the twenty-five 



days in which the 



FIG. 30. 

 cankerworm moths 



, Cankerworm moth, much eaten by 



run or crawl up Chickadee, 



the trees, 138,750 



eggs. He was so impressed with the value of 

 the birds' services that he attracted them to an 

 infested orchard by feeding them there during 

 the winter ; and the following summer " it was 

 noticed that while trees in neighboring orchards 

 were seriously infested with cankerworms and to 

 a less degree with tent-caterpillars (Fig. 84, p. 

 162), those in the orchard which had been fre- 

 quented by the Chickadees during the winter and 

 spring were not seriously infested, and that com- 



