ing a small snowfield she thought she heard a familiar 
~ American voice singing in one of the trees near the snow 
line. She imitated the notes, out came a chickadee, almost . 
to a welcoming hand, and the jong miles from home were 
bridged. 
Two young ee tia tenk a: as they were about 
ready to leave their nests, were able to give their own names 
much more plainly than many children can when old enough 
to cause trouble to fond parents by indulging the run-away 
spirit. These two babies were found by a boy in Seattle 
when workmen blew up a great stump in the process of 
cutting a street through a bit of the old forest that still 
~ covered that part of the city limits. He also found a desert- 
ed vireo nest and placed the youngsters in it so that he could 
take them to his teacher. They clung so tightly with their 
small toes to the new home that they were carried from 
room to room in the big school which the boy attended. 
_ Then they were sent across the city in the street-car to 
another school where, as more hundreds of children viewed 
them, they said over and over again “chicka-dee-dee,” 
while the listeners apes their delighted accompaniment 
to the calls. 
With the Spokane pygmies were other wood midgets 
with dull olive-green backs and whiteish-gray breasts. They 
showed two white wing bars and a white eye-ring, and one 
male bird turned upside down long enough to give a glimpse 
of his scarlet crown telling that they were ruby-crowned 
kinglets. It was only April third, which meant that these 
migrants, nesting usually north of the United States, had 
made an early start for their annual northern trip. One 
male was singing a melody that was thrilling in its quality 
and quantity, and while the singer was quite a bit smaller. 
- than the chickadees, his voice was big enough to be heard 
long distances. 
At Pullman, Washington, a few days later, several | 
groups of these birds were seen and heard on the grounds 
o4 
