GRAY TITMOUSE 421 



parts to B. i. griseus [■=ridgwayi], but under parts much paler, and 

 size slightly smaller." 



Nothing seems to have been published on its habits. 



FAItUS INORNATUS RIDGWAYI Richmond 



GRAY TITMOUSE 



HABITS 



This eastern race of the plain titmice has the widest range of the 

 nine subspecies. The 1931 Check-list says that it "breeds in the Upper 

 Austral Zone of the mountains from northeastern California, Nevada, 

 southern Idaho, Utah, southwestern Wyoming, and Colorado to soutli- 

 eastern California, southern Arizona, southeastern New Mexico, and 

 central western Texas." 



Dr. Joseph Grinnell (1923), writing of the status of the gray titmouse 

 in California, was "almost tempted to propose full specific status" for 

 it, and says: "The Gray Titmouse is a very distinct form, separated 

 sharply from the Plain Titmouse geographically as well as on the basis 

 of phylogenetic characters. No intergradation between these two tit- 

 mouses is known to take place. The Gray Titmouse in California is 

 a rare bird. It has been found to exist only in small numbers and at a 

 few widely scattered points. The general territory in which it occurs 

 lies east of the Sierran divide, in the arid Great Basin faunal division. 

 The life-zone occupied is the Upper Sonoran, and the association the 

 pinon-juniper." 



From the above and following quotations, it will be seen that the 

 haunts of the gray titmouse are quite different from those of the plain 

 titmouse, which seems to prefer mainly the various oak associations. 



Ridgway (1877) says: "In the pine forests of the eastern slope of 

 the Sierra Nevada, especially in their lower portion, and among the 

 cedar and pifion groves on the desert ranges immediately adjacent to 

 the eastward, the Gray Titmouse was a rather common species; but it 

 did not seem to be abundant anywhere." According to Baird, Brewer, 

 and Ridgway (1874), "Dr. Woodhouse met with this species in the 

 San Francisco Mountains, near the Little Colorado River, New Mexico. 

 He found it very abundant, feeding among the tall pines in company 

 with the Sitta pygmaea, S. aculeata, and Parus montanus." Mrs. Bailey 

 (1928) writes of its haunts in New Mexico: "The attractive Gray 

 Titmouse with its prettily crested head and soft Quaker-gray plumage 

 is intimately associated with pleasant camps in the low, sun-filled 

 junipers and nut pines of the mesas, the low desert ranges, and the 

 foothills of the Rocky Mountains." She says that it ranges over the 



667497-48—28 



