HUDSONIAN CHICKADEE. 401 



Nest, a hole appropriated or dug by the birds in a dead tree or stump, not 

 usually very high up, lined with hair, grass, moss, wool, feathers, etc. 



Eggs, six to eight, white, speckled and spotted with reddish-brown, chieily 

 toward the larger end. 



In Southern Ontario the Chickadee is one of our most familiar 

 resident birds. During the breeding season it retires to the woods, 

 but at other times it is seen in Httle troops visiting the shade trees 

 and orchards of the city, searching the crevices for insects, and utter- 

 ing its familiar chickadee, dee, dee, so well known to all the boys. 

 It has also another note, or rather two notes, one quite high which 

 drops suddenly to one much lower, soft and prolonged, and probably 

 both convey a meaning to the ears for which they are intended. 

 During the severity of winter, they are most frequently seen in 

 tamarack swamps, where they no doubt find both food and shelter. 



The Chickadee breeds and is generally distributed throughout 

 Ontario, in the northern part of which it meets with hudsonicus on 

 the east and septentrionalis on the west, but whether or not it breeds 

 with the latter form, I am not aware. In the " Birds of Manitoba," 

 page 631, it is said "the Manitoba bird is not strictly septentrionalis, 

 but is nearer to that form than to atricapillus." Thus it sometimes 

 happens on the boundary between the region inhabited by a species 

 and sub-species that individuals are found, of which it is ditficult to 

 say positively to what group they belong. 



The Chickadee is a general favorite and well deserves to be so. 

 Noisy, restless, familiar and cheerful, he is welcome wherever he 

 appears. He does good work for the farmer and fruit-grower in the 

 destruction of noxious insects, and, unlike many others in this class 

 of wotkers, he keeps at it summer and winter. It has been cal- 

 culated that a single pair of these little birds will kill daily five 

 hundred insect pests. 



PARUS HUDSONICUS (Foest.). 

 306. Hudsonian Chickadee. (740) 



Crown, nape and upper parts, generally clear hair-brown or ashy-brown, 

 with a slight shade of olive, the coloration quite the same on back and crown, 

 and continuous, not being separated by any whitish nuchal interval; throat, 

 quite black, in restricted area, not extending backward on sides of neck, sep- 

 arated from the brown crown by silky white on side of the head, this white 

 not reaching back of the auriculars to the sides of the nape ; sides, flanks and 

 26 



