July, 1905 
A STUDY IN BIRD CONFIDENCE 
93 
Name, Psaltriparus minimus , bush-tit. Nest in hemlock tree six feet from ground. 
Indentity, positive. Eggs, seven, pure white, etc. This is all right for a city direc- 
tory, and is almost as interesting. You don't know a bush-tit any more when von 
have found him with a field-glass and identified him in your bird manual, than you 
do a man when you are introduced to him and shove his card in your pocket. 
Each bird lias a real individuality. Each is different in character and disposition. 
Any careful observer would know the bush-tit and chickadee were cousins, even 
if they had never heard of the Paridae family. 
I found the little family in the hemlock tree even more interesting after they 
all learned to fly. Several times I saw them about the patch of woods. I observed 
many of the same characteristics 
that Joseph Grinnell tells of in 
an interesting article in The 
Condor of July-August, 1903. 
One day I stood watching the 
flock of midgets in an alder copse. 
Each youngster had learned to keep 
A BIRD IN THE HAND IS WORTH SEVERAL ON THE HAT. A STUDY IN BIRD CONFIDENCE « 
up a constant “Tscre-e ! Tscre-e-e ! Tsit ! Tscre-e !” as if always saying something, 
but I do not think this gossip is as much for the sake of the conversation as merely 
to keep the whole flock constantly together. While 1 was watching, three or four 
of the little fellows were within a few feet of me. One of the parents in the next 
tree began a shrill, quavering whistle, and instantly it was taken up by every one 
of the band. 1'he two tiny birds near me, as well as every one of the others, froze 
to their perches as still as death. Had I not known, I couldn't have told just 
where the whistle was coming from, it sounded so scattering like the elusive grating 
call of the cicada. Then I saw a hawk sweeping slowly overhead, and the confus- 
a Upper figure, Mr. William Uovell Finley; lower figure, Mr. Herman T. Bohlman. — Ed. 
