CHICKADEE. 43 



dressed out in a black hood whose sombre tone is 

 relieved by whitish side pieces, a vest to match 

 the sides of the hood, and a dark gray coat for 

 contrast. Clinging to the side of a tree one min- 

 ute, and hanging upside down pecking at the 

 moss on a branch the next, it is flitting about 

 hither and thither so busily that unless you draw 

 near you will hardly catch a glimpse of its black 

 cap and gray and white clothes. You need not 

 fear scaring it, for it has the most winning confi- 

 dence in man, inspecting the trees in the front 

 yard or those in the woods with the same trustful 

 unconcern. 



You are inclined to think that the busy chick- 

 adee takes no time to meditate, and sees only the 

 bright side of life ; and when you hear its plain- 

 tive minor whistle piercing the woods, you wonder 

 if it can have come from the same little creature 

 whose merry chick-a-dee-dee you know so well. 

 Thoreau calls this plaintive whistle the spring 

 phoabe's note of the chickadee, and gives its win- 

 ter call as day, day, day. When happy, the 

 chickadee is the best company one could hope for 

 on a winter's walk ; when busy it seems to realize 

 perpetual motion ; and when it gives up its ordi- 

 nary pursuits and prepares to rear a family, it 

 goes to work in the same whole-souled fashion. 

 Leaving civilization with its many distractions, it 

 goes into the woods, and that is the last you see 

 or hear of it until fall. Even there it is not con- 



