376 BLACK-CAP TITMOUSE. 
creatures, and having discovered the woodman, they seem to find 
pleasure in his company. If, as is usually the case, he is provided 
with a dinner, the Chickadee at once evinces its anxiety to partake 
of it, and loses no opportunity of accomplishing its object, although 
it sets about it with much circumspection, as if it were afraid of being 
detected, and brought to punishment. A woodcutter in Maine assured 
me, that one day he happened to be at work, and had scarcely hung 
up his basket of provisions, when it was observed by a flock of these 
birds, which, having gathered into it at once, attacked a piece of cold 
beef; but after each peck, he saw their heads raised above the edge, 
as if to guard against the least appearance of danger. After picking 
until they were tired or satisfied, they left the basket and perched di- 
rectly over his fire, but out of the direction of the smoke. There they 
sat enjoying themselves and ruffling their feathers to allow the warmth 
more easy access to their skin, until he began his dinner, when they 
immediately alighted near him, and in the most plaintive tones seemed 
to solicit a portion. 
Witson and others have spoken of this species as being addicted to 
moving in the company of our smaller Woodpeckers and Brown Creepers, 
and this in such a way as to induce most readers to believe the act to 
be customary ; but I have often found groups of them, at times com- 
posed of more than a dozen, without any such companions, and I should 
be more inclined to think that the Downy Woodpecker, and the Brown 
Creeper, seek the company of the Titmice, rather than that the lat- 
ter associate with them. Often indeed have I watched the busy Chic- 
kadees, as they proceeded from tree to tree, and from branch to branch, 
whether by the road-side or in the interior of the forest, when no other 
birds were with them. ‘The light rustling sound of their concave wings 
would intimate their approach as well as their retreat, as gaily one af- 
ter another they passed onwards from one spot to another, chattering, 
peeping everywhere, and determined as it were, not to suffer a chink 
to pass without inspection. Now hanging, back downward, at the ex- 
tremity of a twig, its feet almost up to its bill, it would peck at a ber- 
ry or a seed until it had devoured it, or it had fallen to the ground : 
should the latter be the case, the busy bird would at once fly down, and 
hammer at the fruit. To the Black-cap Titmouse the breaking of a hazel 
nut is quite a pleasure, and I have repeated: seen the feat accomplished 
not only by a bird in its natural state, but y one kept in confinement. 
