BIRDS WITH UNMUSICAL VOICES. 125 



continuously pressing the passers-Ly with his vigor- 

 ous questioning. 



Another unmusical character, and a quite common 

 one, is the black-capped titmouse, or chickadee (Parus 

 atricapillus). This bird is a little over five inches 

 long. His head is black and the rest of his body is 

 in effect a pretty even gray ; beneath and behind his 

 eye is a well-marked, wedge - shaped gray - white 

 band ; the throat is black and the breast white- 

 gray ; the vnngs and tail are blackish but gray- 

 edged. 



The titmouse chooses for a nest some hole in a 

 tree, and Wilson says the bird not infrequently is 

 satisfied with the deserted retreat of a squirrel or a 

 woodpecker. According to my own observations 

 the titmice sometimes return to tlieir own previous 

 home, and continue housekeeping again as though 

 they had never been away. For two years past 

 apparently the same pair of birds have come back 

 to the old home in an apple tree behind my cottage. 

 The female lays five or six white eggs speckled with 

 brown-red. 



These birds are characteristically vivacious. They 

 are veritable little acrobats, forever tumbling about 

 the small twigs of the orchard trees, now upside down 

 and again letting go their hold to turn (it always 

 looks that way) a double back somersault in the 



