88 FROM BLOMIDON TO SMOKY. 



titmouse in the Chocorua country in winter, but 

 I had never seen him in numbers or in summer 

 until I reached Cape Breton, and found him 

 perfectly at home in its pasture and roadside 

 thickets as well as in the deep forest. He is a 

 cheaper edition of the common chickadee, who, 

 on the same ground, excels him in many ways. 

 His voice is feebler and husky. What he says 

 sounds commonplace, and his manner of approach 

 lacks the vigilant boldness of the blackcap. His 

 brown head is readily distinguished from the 

 black crown of his more sprightly relative, though 

 it is likely to be looked at closely merely to con- 

 firm the impression already conveyed by his voice 

 that he is not the common chickadee, but a new 

 friend well worth knowing. Apparently, in 

 Cape Breton, he outnumbered our common tit- 

 mouse by five or six to one, yet the blackcap 

 was generally distributed and was as numerous 

 near Ingonish as farther south. Of the black- 

 cap's friends, the white and the red breasted 

 nuthatches, I saw nothing. Once at Margaree 

 Forks I heard the " quank " of the red-breasted, 

 but I failed to see the speaker, and had the note 

 been less peculiar I should have doubted really 

 having heard it. 



About sunset on August 5, I was seated in an 

 evergreen thicket a mile or more back of the 

 village of Baddeck. By "squeaking" I had 



