The Mountain Chickadees 
owner was absent. She with her mate had “gone a-hunting,” and true to 
the old nursery rhyme, she had left the Baby Buntings (in ovo) wrapped 
in a piece of rabbit skin. The nest, which was a great mass of rabbit fur, 
occupied an old cavity 
made by a Batchelder 
Woodpecker in a pine 
stub, at a height of four 
feet from the ground. 
The set was, of course, 
incomplete, so pending 
its completion, the eggs 
had been left by the mis 
tress soundly covered 
up under a blanket of 
rabbit fur at least 
an inch in 
thickness. 
THE EXPLOSION 
Photo by the Author 
The notes of the Mountain Chickadee closely resemble those of 
the more familiar Black-cap (P. atricapillus ), and our knowledge of such 
distinction as undoubtedly does exist, is still incomplete. The Swee-tee 
call may be either of two notes (see under Oregon Chickadee) or three, 
Swee-tee-tee, or both notes may be doubled. Dr. Grinnell says explicitly 
of the Mountain Chickadees which he heard in the San Bernardino 
Mountains, that their “clearly whistled song” was of four notes, the 
first two pitched higher than the others. Now the song phrase of the 
birds heard, not once nor a hundred times only, in the San Jacinto Moun- 
hee i 
hee 
tains, in the season of 1913, was of quite a different order: hoo ' or 
The tones were really ravishing sweet, of a quality 
1 ^^ which put them on a par with the product of the most gifted 
of mountain songsters. Half a dozen times during a stay 
617 
