TUFTED TITMOUSE 399 



brooding devolve mainly, if not wholly, on the female. Both sexes 

 help to feed the young for some time after they leave the nest, and 

 both young and old travel about together in a fauiily party during 

 summer, until they all join the mixed parties of their own and other 

 species that roam the woods during fall and winter. 



Plumages. — The young nestling is mainly naked, except for a scanty 

 covering of dusky, or l)luish gra}', down on the head and back. The 

 development of the first plumage is outlined above. In full juvenal 

 plumage, when it leaves the nest, the young is much like the adult, but 

 all its colors are duller and less distinct, and the plumage is softer, 

 less compact. The crest is not fully developed ; the forehead is dusky 

 rather than black and not so clearly defined against the gray of the 

 crest and the white of the sides of the head ; and the sides and flanks 

 are tinged with pinkish bufi", instead of the richer ]>ro\vn of the adult. 

 A partial postjuvenal molt takes place in August, or later, which involves 

 the contour plumage and the wing coverts, but not the rest of the wings 

 or the tail. In this first winter plumage, young and old are practically 

 indistinguishable ; the crest is distinct, tlie forehead is i)]iick, tlie sides 

 of the head are more decidedly white, and tlie sides and flanks have 

 become a deep "russet" or "Mars brown." There is apparently no 

 spring molt. Adults have one complete annual, postnuptial molt in 

 August. Adults in fresh fall plumage are more or less tinged w'ith 

 olive-brownish on the back and with pale bufly brownish on the chest. 

 The sexes are practically alike in all plumages, but the colors of the 

 adult female are usually somewhat duller than those of the male. 



Food. — The 186 stomachs of tlie tufted titmouse examined by 

 Professor Beal (Real, AIcAtee, and Kalmbach, 1916), were irregularly 

 distributed throughout the year, and were considered by him too few 

 "to afford more than an approximation of the bird's economic v/orth." 

 However, the results show that, so far as his investigation goes, the 

 bird is beneficial and has no bad food habits to oft'set the good it does. 



The food consisted of 66.57 percent animal matter and 33.43 percent 

 vegetable. He says that the food "includes one item, caterpillars, which 

 form more than half the animal food, and two items, caterpillars and 

 wasps, which are more than half of the wdiole food." Beetles make up 

 7.06 percent, of which only one-tenth of 1 percent are useful species ; 

 the cotton-boll weevil was found in four stomachs. Ants are eaten 

 occasionally, and other hymenopterous food, bees, wasps, and sawfly 

 larvae, amounted to 12.5 percent. Other items include stink bugs, 

 treehoppers, scales, only one fly, eggs of katydids, egg cases of cock- 

 roaches, spiders (found in 40 stomac.lis examined in May, 12.67 percent. 



