The Chicadee is not a singing-bird. He utters his usual notes at all
times of the year; but in the early part of summer he is addicted to a
very low but pleasant kind of warbling, considerably varied, and wanting
only more loudness and precision to entitle him to a rank with the
singing-birds. This warbling does not seem intended to cheer his
partner, but it is rather a sort of soliloquizing for his own amusement.
If it was uttered by the young birds only, we might suppose them to be
taking lessons in music, and that this was a specimen of their first
attempts. I have often heard the Golden Robin warbling in a similar
manner.
In company with the Chicadees in their foraging excursions, we often see
two Speckled Woodpeckers, differing apparently only in size, each having
a sort of red crest. The smaller of the two (_Picus pubescens_) is the
Downy Woodpecker. The birds of this species are called "Sap-Suckers,"
from their habit of making perforations in the sound branches of trees
through the bark without penetrating the wood, as if they designed only
to obtain the sap.
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