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Their habitation, therefore, is always second-hand. But each species carries in some soft material of various kinds, or in other words, furnishes the tenement to its liking. The chickadee arranges in the bottom of the cavity a little mat of a light felt-like substance, which looks as if is came from the hatter's, but which is probably the work of numerous worms or caterpillars.

Fortunately the shrike is rare with us; one seldom finds his nest, with poor Chickadee impaled on a sharp thorn near by, surrounded by a varied lot of ugly beetles.

At other times he breaks out with a characteristic volley of fine chickadee notes, and runs without a break into the see-toi, see-too, with a highly pleasing effect. Then if, on the top of this, he doubles the see-too, we have a really prolonged and elaborate musical effort, quite putting into the shade our New England bird's hear, hear me, sweet and welcome as that always is.

He had just made up his mind that in a few minutes he would have to give up and go to bed when there was a flit of tiny wings, and Tommy Tit the Chickadee dropped into the tree beside him. "Did you find out anything?" asked Happy Jack eagerly, before Tommy had a chance to say a word. Tommy nodded. "He's there!" he panted, for he was quite out of breath from hurrying so. "Where?"

A great part are decayed on the ground, and the sound ones are more palatable than before. The note of the chickadee sounds now more distinct, as you wander amid the old trees, and the autumnal dandelion is half-closed and tearful. But still, if you are a skilful gleaner, you may get many a pocket-full even of grafted fruit, long after apples are supposed to be gone out-of-doors.

Great-crested flycatchers, two Acadian flycatchers, a multitude of blue yellow-backed warblers, and what I supposed to be some loud-voiced frogs were especially conspicuous in the concert; but a Carolina wren, a cardinal, a red-eyed vireo, and a blue-gray gnatcatcher, the last with the merest thread of a voice, contributed their share to the medley, and once a chickadee struck up his sweet and gentle strain in the very depths of the swamp like an angel singing in hell.

But I had learned this much, that one Downy at least sometimes liked to be abed on cold mornings. Perhaps he knew that there was no early worm about at this season. Birds and the Night. It may be that others of our winter birds also make excavations for sleeping quarters; the Chickadee and Nuthatch very probably do so, although I have never found them thus engaged.

Then there are the plaintive singers, the soaring, ecstatic singers, the confident singers, the gushing and voluble singers, and the half-voiced, inarticulate singers. The note of the wood pewee is a human sigh; the chickadee has a call full of unspeakable tenderness and fidelity. There is pride in the song of the tanager, and vanity in that of the catbird.

The serene silence was seldom broken save by the cry of an eagle or an osprey, high overhead, the chirping of the chickadee flitting about the camp to find a crumb, or the complaining note of the Canada jay, most friendly of all wild birds, seeking for the scraps of venison we used to throw out for him.

All the birds that had been fed during the winter brought their aunts, uncles, and cousins seventy times seven removed, until all I had to do was lie in my hammock and identify them from a book with colored plates. White Mountain's special pet was a tiny chickadee.