A Basket of Chips. 
219 
A BASKET OF CHIPS. 
In the season when trees are bare and 
grass is brown the varied blossoms and 
bird songs are but a memory, or, if 
the mind be prophetic rather than re¬ 
trospective, an anticipation. True, a few 
days of unusual mildness may induce a 
modest chickweed or veronica to open a 
sleepy eye here and there, particularly 
in the more protected park or lawn of 
the city, or a song sparrow or Carolina 
wren, or perhaps a tufted titmouse, mead¬ 
ow lai*k, or even a cardinal, to try its 
voice; but these are straggling and in¬ 
cidental occurrences that merely serve 
to accentuate the general emptiness of 
winter. 
Still, though the musical spirit may be 
dormant or fled to another clime, the 
woods and fields are not absolutely silent. 
For the birds are not limited vocally to 
those aesthetic utterances that bring us 
so much delight. Many are the notes at 
their command, expressive of other emo¬ 
tions than the pure love of music, which 
so palpably governs them in their sing¬ 
ing. Surprise, anxiety, alaiun, content¬ 
ment, happiness,—these and other states, 
doubtless, have their appropriate utter¬ 
ances. Mere chattering, for companion¬ 
ship’s sake, may be heard, too. Often, 
as it seems, a mere habit —as though 
a human were to hum unconsciously to 
himself without reference to mental state 
or occupation — is the only cause of 
some of the little notes or phrases that 
thinly clothe the wintry woods. 
It is, therefore, worth while sometimes 
to take a winter’s walk and gather a few 
of these “ chips,” as most of them are 
called. They may be drier and colder 
than the full-clad tree of song from which 
they are cut, but they have much power 
for warmth to the spirit, and the pursuit 
is full of interest. 
Strictly speaking, such birds as king¬ 
lets, chickadees, and wrens do notchij); 
but then, very stri(itiy speaking, neitlier 
do sparrows, — not evpti ehip'f/iwj spar¬ 
rows, — so we need not balk at the term. 
It must be confessed, too, that if we 
listen very closely, the chickadee ^ does 
not utter his name as he roves singly or 
in a merry band through the trees, glean¬ 
ing such sustenance as the season permits. 
His common phrase, which has been thus 
anglicized, consists of two kinds of utter¬ 
ances, — a high note of a somewhat thick 
soprano quality, and a series of low 
notes, often very musical in tone. These 
low notes are very peculiar. They vary 
in pitch, apparently with the varying 
stress with which they are uttered, but 
by breaks, instead of gradually. The 
first I ever listened to attentively were 
confined to the three notes of the first 
inversion of the chord of D minor. 
b II 
T 
7 ^ , IJ 
1 - 
passing irregularly from each to the next 
above or below. For a while I heard 
these same notes in the dee part of each 
chick-a-dee that I noted closely, and con¬ 
cluded that it was likely that all the dee 
notes were similarly constructed, and 
that this probably accounted for the 
mournful tinge that attaches to this ut¬ 
terance despite its sprightliness. But I 
subsequently heard tones of other pitch 
that upset my supposed fact and its corol¬ 
lary, the major triad of F 
a 
f( 
r ^ n 
2? 11 
1 . 
being among the chords represented. 
Chickadee has also a very high, fine 
note, which he has, perhaps, borrowed 
from, or lent to, the kinglet, and which 
^ The chickadee referred to in this article is 
the Carolina chickadee, w hich is very abundant 
about Washington, particularly in winter. 
5 
