62 IN BERKSHIRE FIELDS 



begin the process of coaxing them into still greater 

 familiarity. There is always one bird braver or 

 more friendly than the rest, possibly an old fellow 

 who was with us last season, and sometimes he will 

 eat from our hands several days before the others 

 get up their courage. My wife is much more suc- 

 cessful as a chickadee-tamer than I am, possibly 

 because she has more patience ; but in the course of 

 a long, hard winter we have frequently had a whole 

 flock so tame that they would come not only to our 

 hands, but to those of adults and even children visit- 

 ing us. 



The process is simple. My wife puts half a dozen 

 sunflower seeds in the palm of her hand and stands 

 under the apple-tree at the hour when the birds are 

 most hungry. (They are comparatively hungry all 

 the time, but early in the morning, at about our 

 lunch-time, and again late in the winter afternoon, 

 they make their chief meals, with innumerable 

 snacks between.) Then she holds out her hand 

 invitingly, looks up, and usually whistles once or 

 twice the chickadee's song not his dee-dee call, but 

 his real song: 



The chances are that several birds are already hop- 

 ping and twittering in the apple-tree overhead. If 

 they aren't, they come in a moment. Every bird 

 has his eye on the palmful of inviting black seeds. 

 Every bird shows unmistakable signs of excitement, 

 hopping nearer and nearer to lower and lower 



