Dusky, Gray, and Slate-colored 



the trees close by the house, where, through the sunshine, snow, 

 and tempest of the entire winter, you may hear its cheery, 

 irrepressible chickadee-dee-dee-dee or day-day-day as it swings 

 around the dangling cones of the evergreens. It fairly over- 

 flows with good spirits, and is never more contagiously gay than 

 in a snowstorm. So active, so friendly and cheering, what 

 would the long northern winters be like without this lovable little 

 neighbor ? 



It serves a more utilitarian purpose, however, than bracing 

 faint-hearted spirits. "There is no bird that compares with it in 

 destroying the female canker-worm moths and their eggs," writes 

 a well-known entomologist. He calculates that as a chickadee 

 destroys about 5,500 eggs in one day, it will eat 138,750 eggs in 

 the twenty-five days it takes the canker-worm moth to crawl up 

 the trees. The moral that it pays to attract chickadees about 

 your home by feeding them in winter is obvious. Mrs. Mabel 

 Osgood Wright, in her delightful and helpful book "Birdcraft," 

 tells us how she makes a sort of a bird-hash of finely minced raw 

 meat, waste canary-seed, buckwheat, and cracked oats, which 

 she scatters in a sheltered spot for all the winter birds. The 

 way this is consumed leaves no doubt of its popularity. A raw 

 bone, hung from an evergreen limb, is equally appreciated. 



Friendly as the chickadee is — and Dr. Abbott declares it the 

 tamest bird we have — it prefers well-timbered districts, especially 

 where there are red-bud trees, when it is time to nest. It is very 

 often clever enough to leave the labor of hollowing out a nest in 

 the tree-trunk to the woodpecker or nuthatch, whose old homes 

 it readily appropriates; or, when these birds object, a knot-hole 

 or a hollow fence-rail answers every purpose. Here, in the sum- 

 mer woods, when family cares beset it, a plaintive, minor whistle 

 replaces the chickadee-dee-dee that Thoreau likens to "silver tink- 

 ling" as he heard it on a frosty morning. 



"Piped a tiny voice near by, 

 Gay and polite, a cheerful cry — 

 Chick-chickadeedee! saucy note 

 Out of sound heart and merry throat. 

 As if it said, 'Good-day, good Sir! 

 Fine afternoon, old passenger! 

 Happy to meet you in these places 

 Where January brings few faces.'" 



— Emerson. 



77 



