The Black-cap Titmouse.
1850. An unusual stillness rested over the swamp, unbroken save by the tramp of my horse; not even a frog or chichado was to be heard, and the wind had assumed that low, plaintive wail amidst the leaves, that never fails to cast a melancholy shadow over the heart, and awaken all the superstitions of our minds.—H. C. Lewis (‘Madison Tensas’), ‘Odd Leaves,’ p. 98 (Phila.).
1854. The chickadee lisps amid the evergreens.—Thoreau, ‘Walden,’ iv. 124. (N.E.D.)
a. 1854.
| Far distant sounds the hidden chickadee | |
| Close at my side. | |
J. R. Lowell, ‘An Indian-Summer Reverie.’ |
1891. The speaker was a small, thin old woman, alert and active as a chickadee, with a sharp twitter in her voice, reminding one still more of that small black and gray bird that cheers us with his gay defiance of winter, though he utter it from a fir bough bent to the ground with heavy snows.—Rose T. Cooke, ‘Huckleberries,’ p. 316 (Boston).
