LAND BIRDS. 695 
313. Black-capped Chickadee. Penthestes atricapillus atricapillus (Linn.). 
(735) 
Synonyms: Common Chickadee, Eastern Chickadee, Black-capped Titmouse.— 
Parus atricapillus, Linn., 1766, and of most authors.—Peecile atricapillus, Coucs, 1868. 
—Parus palustris, Nutt., 1832. 
Top of head from bill to nape lustrous black, as are also the chin and 
throat; sides of head and neck clear white; breast and belly whitish, the 
sides and flanks buffy; back, wings and tail gray. 
Distribution.—Kastern North America north of the Potomac and Ohio 
Valleys. 
Perhaps this is the best known arboreal bird of the entire state. Com- 
mon summer and winter alike, and particularly noticeable while the trees 
are leafless and other birds are scarce, the fluffy little Chickadee comes 
freely about dwellings even in towns and cities and is almost universally 
recognized and protected. While it wanders more or less after the nesting 
season and very possibly migrates southward to some extent every winter, 
yet it is one of those species commonly called resident through the year 
and in any locality may always be found if looked for. 
It is one of the species which does absolutely no harm so far as we know, 
never attacking fruit or grain nor injuring any vegetable growth whatever. 
It is possible, and even probable, that among the millions of insects and 
insect eggs which it eats it does not always discriminate between useful 
and harmful forms, but in the main its work as an insect eater is decidedly 
beneficial, and, all things considered, the agriculturist has no better friend 
among the birds. 
Its habits are too well known to need extended notice. Every one is 
familiar with its actions; hopping from twig to twig, clinging to the bark 
of the trunk and large limbs of a tree, hanging head downward beneath a 
branch or swinging on the end of a pine cone, always prying into the cracks 
and crevices of bark, bud and leaf and extracting the tiny insects or the 
tinier eggs which are a constant threat to the welfare of orchard, park and 
grove. 
Numerous critical studies of its food have been made, some of them 
involving the destruction of many Chickadee lives in order that the 
stomach contents might be carefully determined. The results of these 
studies are surprisingly uniform. Even during winter at least half the 
Chickadee’s food consists of insects and their eggs, and we have no bird 
which eats so many insect eggs summer or winter as this bird. In studies 
made at the New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Station during 
winter it was found that the eggs of plant-lice made up more than one- 
fifth of the food, and apparently the only possible harm done was the 
consumption of a comparatively small number of spiders and their eggs, 
these forming perhaps 5 percent of the entire stomach contents. It was 
shown that often more than 450 eggs of plant-lice were eaten by a single 
Chickadee in the course of a day. Among other eggs found were those of 
the tent-caterpillar and the fall canker-worm, while larve of the codling 
moth and bark beetles of the family scolytide were eaten freely. 
Under the author’s direction, Mr. E. D. Sanderson examined the stomachs 
of twenty-eight Michigan Chickadees, nineteen in winter and nine in spring, 
