SOME NEIGHBORLY ACROBATS 37 



southern birds move northward in the spring. Happily 

 the chickadee may find a woodpecker's vacant hole in some 

 hollow tree; worse luck if a new excavation must be made 

 in a decayed birch — the favorite nursery. Wool from the 

 sheep pasture, felt from fern fronds, bits of bark,^oss, hair, 

 and the fur of "little beasts of field and wood" — ^anything 

 soft that may be picked up goes to line the hollow cradle 

 in the tree trunk. How the crowded chickadee babies 

 must swelter in their bed of fur and feathers tucked inside 

 a dose, stuflfy hole! 



The Tufted Titmouse 



Don't expect to meet the tufted titmouse if you live very 

 far north of Washington. He is common only in the South 

 and West. 



This pert and lively cousin of the lovable little chickadee 

 is not quite so friendly and far more noisy. Peto-peto-peto 

 comes his loud, clear whistle from the woods and clearings 

 where he and his large family are roving restlessly about 

 all through the autumn and winter. A famous musician 

 became insane because he heard one note ringing con- 

 stantly in his overwrought brain. If you ever hear a 

 troup of titmice whistling peto over and over again for 

 hours at a time, you will pity poor Schumann and fear a 

 similar fate for the birds. But they seem to delight in the 

 two tiresome notes, uttered sometimes in one key, some- 

 times in another. Another call — day-day-day — ^reminds 

 you of the chickadee's, only the tufted titmouse's voice is 

 louder and a little hoarse, as it well might be from such 

 constant use. 



