is bird, that, if they were repeated in
uninterrupted succession, they would form one of the most agreeable of
woodland melodies.

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. These perforations are often made in a circle round
the branch, and it is highly probable that they follow the path of a
grub that is concealed underneath the bark. Our farmers, who suspect
every bird of some mischievous designs, accuse them of boring into the
tree for the purpose of drinking the sap.

The Woodpecker is a more restless, though not a more industrious
bird than the Chicadee, and seldom gives the branches so thorough an
examination as the latter. He searches for grubs that are concealed in
the wood of the tree; he examines those spots only where he hears their
scratchings, bores the wood to obtain them, and then flies off. But the
Chicadee looks for insects on or near the surface, and does not confine
his search to trees. He examines fences, the under part of the eaves of
houses, and the woodpile, and destroys, in the course of his foraging,
many an embryo moth and butterfly which would otherwise become the
parent of noxious larvae. The Woodpecker is often represented as the
emblem of industry; but the Chicadee is more truly emblematical of this
virtue, and the Woodpecker of perseverance, as he never tires when
drilling into the wood of a tree in quest of his prey.

Another of the companions of the Chicadee is