284 
SINGING BIRDS. 
the habits. They are actively engaged during their transient 
visits to the South in gleaning up insects and their lurking 
larvse, for which they perambulate the branches of trees of 
various kinds, frequenting gardens and orchards, and skipping 
and vaulting from the twigs, sometimes head downwards like 
the Chickadee, with whom they often keep comjiany, making 
only now and then a feeble chirp. They appear at this time 
to search chiefly after spiders and dormant concealed coleop- 
terous or shelly insects ; they are also said to feed on small 
berries and some kinds of seeds, which they break open by 
pecking with the bill in the manner of the Titmouse. They 
likewise frequent the sheltered cedar and pine woods, in which 
they probably take up their roost at night. Early in April 
they are seen on their return to the North in Pennsylvania ; at 
this time they dart among the blossoms of the maple and elm 
in company with the preceding species, and apj^ear more vola- 
tile and actively engaged in seizing small flies on the wing, and 
collecting minute, lurking caterpillars from the opening leaves. 
On the 2ist of May, 1835, I observed this species feeding 
its full-fledged young in a tall pine-tree on the banks of the 
Columbia River. 
The range of this species is now set down as “ Eastern North 
America west to the Rockies, breeding from the northern border 
of the United States northward, wintering in the Eastern States 
and south to Gautemala.” Until quite recently it was supposed to 
be a migrant through Massachusetts, wintering in small numbers, 
but has been discovered breeding in both Berkshire and Worcester 
counties. Nests have been taken also on the Catskills. It is a 
resident of the settled portion of Canada, though not common west 
of the Ceorgian Bay, and rarely breeding south of latitude 45°. 
The song is a rather simple “ twittered warble,” shrill and high- 
pitched. 
