HOST RELATIONS OF PARASITIC COWBIRDS 63 



Carolina Chickadee 



Parus carolinensis Audubon 



This species parallels the black-capped chickadee in its relation 

 to the brown-headed cowbird. The similarity in appearance and in 

 habits of the two chickadees probably reduces them to a single entity 

 as far as the parasite is concerned. Only two records have come to 

 my notice, both from Maryland and both recorded by E. J. Court: 

 a nest with 5 eggs of the host and 2 of the cowbird, collected at Piney 

 Point, St. Mary's County, April 25, 1934, and another with 5 eggs 

 of the chickadee and 1 of the cowbird in the same area on May 25, 

 1934. In the case of the first record. Court informed me that he 

 caught the female cowbird on the nest about half an hour after day- 

 light. Stewart and Robbins (1958, p. 329) list only the second 

 record, a circumstance which raises the question as to whether or 

 not the two records may be really a single instance with an error 

 in reporting. The nominate race of the cowbird and the subspecies 

 extimus of the chickadee are involved here. 



Tufted Titmouse 



Parus hicolor Linnaeus 



The tufted titmouse is an uncommon victim of the brown-headed 

 cowbird, but it has been noted in that capacity in Pennsylvania, 

 Ohio, and Illinois. In Bendire's early list (1893) of cowbird victims, 

 he included this species, but what evidence he had is not clear. Ogilvie- 

 Grant (1912, p. 374) listed a cowbird's egg in the British Museum, 

 an egg reported to have been taken from a tufted titmouse's nest by 

 P. M. Whealer, but no date or locality was given. Goehtz (1915) 

 recorded two parasitized nests in Illinois, one containing 7 eggs of 

 the host and 1 of the parasite, the other with 3 eggs of the titmouse 

 and 2 of the cowbird. Jacobs (1888, 1823) noted a parasitized nest 

 in Pennsylvania on May 7, 1887, early enough to have been the 

 basis for Bendire's inclusion. Price (1934) found another at Sher- 

 wood, Ohio. Sutton (1928, p. 163) discovered a tufted titmouse 

 that was parasitized on one occasion in the Pymatuning Swamp area, 

 Pennsylvania. All the records relate to the eastern race of the 

 parasite, M.a. ater. 



Black -crested Titmouse 



Parus atricristatus Cassin 



One subspecies of this titmouse, P.a. sennetti, has been recorded 

 as a victim of the dwarf race of the brown-headed cowbird. A, J. 

 Kirn informed me some years ago that once at Somerset, Texas, he 

 collected a set from this bird with 2 of its own eggs and 1 of the cow- 

 bird's. He wrote that evidently there had been a disturbance at 

 the nest: one of the host's eggs was punctured, the nest was some- 



