Identifier: everydaybirdsele00torr (find matches)
Title: Everyday birds; elementary studies
Year: 1901 (1900s)
Authors: Torrey, Bradford, 1843-1912
Subjects: Birds
Publisher: Boston, New York, Houghton, Mifflin and Company
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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mbs at his feet, and even to take themfrom his hand. Better even than crumbs is a bit of mince pie,or a piece of suet. I have myself held out apiece of suet to a chickadee as I walked throughthe woods, and have had him fly down at once,perch on my finger Hke a tame canary, and fallto eating. But he was a bird that another man,a woodcutter of my acquaintance, had tamed inthe manner above described. The chickadees nest is built in a hole, gener-ally in a decayed stump or branch. It is verypretty to watch the pair when they are diggingout the hole. All the chips are carried away anddropped at a little distance from the tree, so thatthe sight of them littering the ground may notreveal the birds secret to an enemy. Male and female dress alike. The top of thehead is black — for which reason they are calledblack-capped chickadees, or black-capped tit-mice — and the chin is of the same color, whilethe cheeks are clear white. If you are not surethat you know the bird, stay near him till he
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CHICKADEE/. Male. 2. Female THE CHICKADEE 9 pronounces his own name. He will be prettycertain to do it, sooner or later, especially if youexcite him a little by squeaking or chirping tohim. Although the chickadee is small and delicate-looking, he seems not to mind the very coldestof weather. Give him enough to eat, and thewind may whistle. He picks his food, tiny in-sects, insects eggs, and the like, out of crevicesin the bark of trees and about the ends of twigs,and so is seldom or never without resources. Thedeepest snows do not cover up his dinner-table.His worst days, no doubt, are those in whicheverything is covered with sleet. One of his prettiest traits is his skill in hang-ing back downward from the tip of a swingingbranch or from the under side of a leaf while insearch of provender. As a small boy, who hadprobably been to the circus, once said, the chick-adee is a first-rate performer on the flyingtrapeze. m THE BROWN CREEPER In the midst of a Massachusetts winter, whena man

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