42 



CHICKADEE, OR BLACK-CAPPED TITMOUSE. 



he ascended in a spiral line ; at length, having gained the tower- 

 ing summit, while basking in the mild sunbeams, he surveys the 

 extensive landscape, and almost with the same reverberating 

 sound as his blows, at intervals, he utters a loud and solitary 

 'cur'rJk, in a tone as solemn as the tolling of the campanero ; he 

 thus hearkens, as it were, to the shrill echoes of his own voice, a!:d, 

 for an hour at a time, seems alone employed in contemplating, in 

 cherished solitude and security, the beauties and blessings of the 

 rising day. 



Wilson writes : "This species possesses all the restless and noisy 

 habits so characteristic of its tribe. It is more shy and less domes- 

 tic than the Red-headed one (P. erythrocej>halus) , or any of the 

 other spotted Woodpeckers. It is also more solitary. It prefers 

 the largest, high-timbered woods, and tallest decayed trees of the 

 forest ; seldom appearing near the ground, on the fences, or in or- 

 chards, or open fields; yet, when the trees have been deadened, 

 and stand pretty thick in fields of Indian corn, as is common in 

 new settlements, I have observed it to be very numerous, and have 

 found its stomach sometimes completely filled with that grain. Its 

 voice is hoarser than any of the others, and its usual note, 'chow, 

 has often reminded me of the baiking of a little lap-dog. It is a 

 most expert climber, possessing extraordinary strength in the mus- 

 cles of its feet and claws, and moves about the body and horizon- 

 tal limbs of the trees, with equal facility, in all directions. It rat- 

 tles, like the rest of the tribe, on the dead limbs, and with such 

 violence as to be heard, in still weather, more than half a mile off, 

 and listens to hear the insects it has alarmed. In the lower side 

 of some lofty branch that makes a considerable angle with the 

 horizon, the male and female, in conjunction, dig out a circular 

 cavity for their nest, sometimes out of the solid wood, but more 

 generally into a hollow limb, twelve or fifteen inches above where 

 it becomes solid. This is usually performed early in April. The 

 female lays five eggs of a pure white, or almost semi-transparent, 

 and the young generally make their appearance toward the latter 

 end of May or beginning of June, climbing up to the higher parts 

 of the tree, being as yet unable to fly. In this situation, they are 

 fed for several days, and often become the prey of the Hawks.' 

 From seeing the old ones continuing their caresses after this period, 

 I believe that they often, and perhaps always, produce two broods 

 in a season. During the greatest part of the summer, the young 

 have the ridge of the neck and head of a dull brownish-ash ; and 

 a male of the third year has received his complete colors." 



The Red-bellied Woodpecker is ten inches in length, and sev- 

 enteen in extent; the bill is nearly an inch and a half in length, 

 wedged at the point, but not quite so much grooved as some 

 others — strong, and of a bluish-black color; the nostrils are 

 placed in one of these grooves, and covered with curving tufts of 

 light-brown hairs, ending in black points ; the feathers on the 

 front stand more erect than usual, and are of a dull yellowish-red ; 

 from them, along the whole upper part of the head and neck, down 

 the back, and spreading round to the shoulders, is of the most 

 brilliant, golden, glossy red ; the whole cheeks, lined over the eye, 

 and under side of the neck, are a pale-buff color, which, on the 

 breast and belly, deepens into a yellowish-ash, stained on the belly 

 with a blood-red ; the vent and thigh feathers are a dull-white, 

 marked down their centers with heart-formed and long arrow- 

 pointed spots of black. The back is black, crossed with trans- 

 verse curving lines of white ; the wings are also black ; the lesser 

 wing-coverts, circular-tipped, and the whole primaries and second- 

 aries beautifully crossed with bars of white, and also tipped with 

 the same ; the rump is white, interspersed with touches of black ; 

 the tail-coverts, white near their extremities. The tail consists of 

 ten feathers, the two middle ones black, their anterior webs or 

 vanes white, crossed with diagonal spots of black ; then, where 

 the edges of the two feathers just touch, coincide and form heart- 

 shaped spots ; a narrow sword-shaped line of white runs up the 

 exterior side of the shafts of the same feathers; the next four 

 feathers, on each side, are black, the outer edges of the exterior 



ones barred with black and white, which, on the lower side, seems 

 to cross the whole vane, as in the figure ; the extremities of the 

 whole tail, except the outer feathers, are black, sometimes touched 

 with yellowish or cream color ; the legs and feet are of a bluish- 

 green, and the iris of the eye red. The tongue, or os hyoides, passes 

 up over the hind head, and is attached, by a very elastic, retrac- 

 tile membrane, to the base of the right nostril ; the extremity of 

 the tongue is long, horny, very pointed, and thickly edged with 

 barbs ; the other part of the tongue is worm-shaped. 



Chicadee, or Black-capped Titmouse {Partis atricafillus) . 



Fig. 4. 



This familiar, hardy, and restless little bird chiefly inhabits the 

 Northern and Middle States, as well as Canada, in which it is 

 even resident in winter, around Hudson's Bay, and has been met 

 with at sixty-two degrees on the northwest coast. In all the North- 

 ern and Middle States, during autumn and winter, families of these 

 birds are seen chattering and roving through the woods, busily en- 

 gaged in gleaning their multifarious food, along with the Nut- 

 hatches and Creepers, the whole forming a busy, active, and noisy 

 group, whose manners, food, and habits bring them together in a 

 common pursuit. Their diet varies with the season ; for, beside 

 insects, their larvae, and eggs, of which they are more particularly 

 fond, in the month of September, they leave the woods, and as- 

 semble familiarly in our orchards and gardens, and even enter the 

 thronging cities, in quest of that support which their native forests 

 now deny them. Large seeds of many kinds, particularly those 

 which are oily, as the seeds of the sun-flower, and pine and spruce 

 kernels, are now sought after. These seeds, in the usual manner 

 of the genus, are seized in the claws and held against the branch, 

 until picked open by the bill, to obtain their contents. Fat of va- 

 rious kinds is also greedily eaten, and they regularly watch the 

 retreat of the hog-killers, in the country, to glean up the fragments 

 of meat which adhere to the places where the carcases have been 

 suspended. At times, they feed upon the wax of the candle-berry 

 myrtle {myrica cerifera). They likewise pick up crumbs near 

 the houses, and search the weather-boards, and even the window- 

 sills, familiarly for their lurking prey, and are particularly fond of 

 spiders and the eggs of destructive moths, especially those of the 

 canker-worm, which they greedily destroy in all its stages of ex- 

 istence. It is said that they sometimes attack their own species, 

 when the individual is sickly, and aim their blows at the skuU 

 with a view to eat the brain ; but this barbarity I have never wit- 

 nessed. In winter, when satisfied, they will descend to the snow- 

 bank beneath, and quench their thirst by swallowing small pieces \ 

 in this way, their various and frugal meal is always easily sup 

 plied; and hardy, and warmly clad in light and very downy 

 feathers, they suffer little inconvenience from the inclemency of the 

 seasons. Indeed, in the winter, or about the close of October, they 

 at times appear so enlivened as already to show their amorous at- 

 tachment, like our domestic cock, the male approaching his mate 

 with fluttering and vibrating wings ; and in the spring season, the 

 males have obstinate engagements, darting after each other with 

 great velocity and anger. Their roost is in the hollow of decayed 

 trees, where they also breed, making a soft, nest of moss, hair, and 

 feathers, and laying from six to tw-elve eggs, which are white, with 

 specks of brown-red. They begin to lay about the middle or close 

 of April, and though they commonly make use of natural or de- 

 serted holes of the Woodpecker, yet, at times, they are said to 

 excavate a cavity for themselves, with much labor. The first brood 

 take wing about the 7th or 10th of June, and they have sometimes 

 a second toward the end of July. The young, as soon as fledged, 

 have all the external marks of the adult; the head is equally 

 black, and they chatter and skip about with all the agility and self- 

 possession of their parents, who appear, nevertheless, very solicit- 



