4l6 BULLETIN 191, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



as they are able to care for themselves. Dr. Price (1936) banded 145 

 young birds, but only two "were recaptured nesting the following year, 

 and both were more than a quarter of a mile distant from the box where 

 hatched." 



Plumages. — The juvenal plumage, even with a decided crest, is mainly 

 assumed before the young bird leaves the nest. This is much like the 

 adult plumage, but it is softer and less compact; the wing c.overts are 

 somewhat paler and indistinctly bufTy at the tips. Most of the molts 

 occur in August, but T have seen a bird in full juvenal plumage as late 

 as August 29 and an adult molting as early as July 14. The post] u venal 

 molt includes the contour plumage and the wing coverts, but not the 

 flight feathers. The postnuptial molt of adults is complete. 



Food. — Prof. F. E. L. Beal (1907) examined 76 stomachs of the plain 

 titmouse and says that "unlike most of the titmice, the plain tit eats less 

 animal than vegetable food, the proportion being 43 percent of animal 

 and 57 of vegetable." Bugs (Hemiptera) seem to be the favorite, 12 

 percent; the injurious black olive sc.ale forms nearly 5 of this 12 per- 

 cent ; in the month of August, 34 percent of the contents of nine stomachs 

 consisted of these scales, and one stomach was filled with them; other 

 hemipterous food included leafhoppers, jumping plant-lice, and tree- 

 hoppers. Caterpillars amounted to nearly 11 percent. Beetles formed 

 nearly 7 percent, all harmful species, including the genus Balanimts, 

 weevils with long snouts; these "insects, by means of this long snout, 

 bore into nuts and acorns, wherein they deposit eggs, which hatch grubs 

 that eat the nut. The tit finds these beetles while foraging upon the oaks. 

 One stomach contained the remains of 13 of them, another 11, a third 8, 

 and a fourth 7. while others contained fewer." Some of these were 

 probably found v.hile the bird was feeding upon the acorns. Hymenop- 

 tera, ants and wasps, made up about 6 percent of the food, and other 

 insects, daddy-long-legs and grasshoppers, amounted to a little more 

 than 5 percent; one stomach contained the remains of 13 grasshoppers. 

 A few spiders were eaten, less than 1 percent. 



In the vegetable food, fruit amounted to nearly 32 percent, three 

 times as much as eaten by the linnet, and this appeared to be of the 

 larger cultivated varieties; no seeds of wild berries were found. "Qierries 

 were identified in a number of stomachs, and the pulp of the larger 

 fruits was abundant. * * * Oats were found in a number of stomachs 

 and constituted nearly 30 percent of the contents of two stomachs taken 

 in January. * ♦ ♦ 



"Leaf galls, seeds of poison oak, weed seeds, unidentifiable matter and 

 rubbish make up the remainder. 24 percent, of the vegetable food." 



