528. The lludsonian Chickadee. {Partis hiidsonicus.) By Montague 

 Chamberlain. Ibid.. Ill, pp. 215-217. — Biography of the species. 



Oaa. SpoiP*. & Naturalist 



General Notes. 



Distribution of the Hudsonian Chickadee. — In his paper on 'The 

 Hudsonian Chickadee and its Allies,' published in 'The Auk' of Oct. 1893, 

 Mr.Rhoads makes the statement (p. 322) that "this Chickadee is a rare 

 visitor in Manitoba, Ontario and Qiiebec, and for that matter, in any 

 non-mountainous locality south of Hudson's Bay." This is entirely con- 

 trary to my experience. In that part of Nova Scotia that I am particularly 

 familiar with, Annapolis, Yarmouth and Digby Counties, this bird is 

 extremely abundant. Every autumn for the past eight years I have spent 

 a month or more with Digby as my headquarters. 



Here the Hudsonian Chickadee is rather hard to shoot owing to the 

 nature of the country it inhabits, keeping almost exclusively in the thick 

 second growth spruce and fir woods, but in a day's walk through their 

 favorite haunts I never fail to see less than twenty-five or fifty and often 

 many times that number. In October and November they are in large 

 loose flocks in company with the Common Chickadee and the Golden- 

 crowned Kinglet, and often the spruce woods seem fairly alive with these 

 birds, always in motion, always passing on and on through the spruces, 

 so fast that it is impossible to keep up to them. Often while walking 

 through these dense forests of evergreens, suddenly as if by magic, the 

 trees about one will become alive with these three species, their cheerful 

 notes sounding from every branch and the next moment, as suddenly as 

 they came, they will disappear again and leave the forest still and gloomy 

 as before. 



The country about Digby is strictly non-mountainous, and what hills 

 there are, as the North Mountain back of the town of Digby, and the hills 

 back of Granville on the opposite side of the Annapolis Basin, are covered 

 with a hard wood growth, for the most part, principally beach. I never 

 found the Hudsonian Chickadee in these woods. In fact I have never seen 

 them except very occasionally anywhere but in the thick spruces and firs. 



My own experience is, as I have stated above, confined to the autumn 

 months, but my friend, Mr. H. A. P. Smith of Digby, N. S., who is a 

 careful observer, teUs me the bird is strictly resident and breeds abun- 

 dantly. 



In August and September, 1880, my brother, E. A. Bangs, was camped 

 on the Restigouche River, N. B., and found the Hudsonian Chickadee 

 very abundant all along the river. He got a good series of them without 

 any difiiculty. 



So far from its being a rare visitor in any non-mountainous locality 

 south of Hudson's Bay, I should be much surprised not to find the Hud- 

 sonian Chickadee abundant in any part of Canada, New Brunswick or 

 Northern Maine, where the country was suitable to its mode of life. — 

 OuTRAM Bangs, Boston^ Mass. n. 

 Auk XI. Jan. 1894 Pi 81-82 



