CHICKADEE (Penthestes atricapillusj. 



Length, about 5^ inches. 



Ranfi:e: Resident in the United States (ex- 

 cept the southern half east of the plains), 

 Canada, and Alaska. 



Habits and economic status: Because of its 

 delightful notes, its confiding ways, and its 

 fearlessness, the chickadee is one of our best- 

 known birds. It responds to encouragement, 

 and by hanging within its reach a constant 

 supply of suet the chickadee can be made a 

 regular visitor to the garden and orchard. 

 Though insignificant in size, titmice are far 

 from Doing so from the economic standpoint, 

 owing to their numbers and activity. While 

 one locality is being scrutinized for food by 

 a larger bird, 10 are being searched by the 

 smaller species. The chickadee's food is made 

 up of insects and vegetable matter in the pro- 

 portion of 7 of the former to 3 of the latter. Moths and caterpillars are favorites 

 and form about one-third of the whole. Beetles, ants, wasps, bugs, flies, grass- 

 hoppers, and spiders make up the rest. The vegetable food is composed of 

 seeas, largely those of pines, with a few of the poison ivy and some weeds. There 

 tire few more useful birds than the chickadees. (See Farmers' Bui. 54, pp. 43-44.) 



WHITE-BREASTED NUTHATCH (Sitta carolinensis). 



Length, 6 inches. White below, above gray, with a black head. 



Range: Resident in the United States, southern Canada, and Mexico. 



Habits and economic status: This bird might 

 readily be mistaken by a careless observer for a 

 small woodpecker, but its note, an oft-repeated 

 yank, is very unwoodpecker-like, and, unlike 

 either woodpeckers or creepers, it climbs down- 

 ward as easily as upward and seems to set the 

 laws of gravity at defiance. The name was sug- 

 gested by the habit of wedging nuts, especially 

 beechnuts, in the crevices of bark so as to 

 break them open by blows from the sharp, 

 strong bill. Tne nutiiatch gets its living from 

 the trunks and branches of trees, over which 

 it creeps from daylight to dark. Insects and 

 spiders constitute a little more than 50 per 

 cent of its food. The largest items of these are 

 beetles, moths, and caterpillars, with ants and 

 wasps. The animal fooci is all in the bird's 

 favor except a few ladybird beetles. More than 

 half of the vegetable food consists of mast, i. e., 

 acorns and other nuts or large seeds. One- 

 tenth of the food is grain, mostly waste corn. 

 The nuthatch does no injury, so far as known, 

 and much good. 



675 



