400 BULLETIN 191, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



only a trace in June, and in 3 stomachs in July, 16.33 percent, evidently 

 a makeshift food), and a few snails. Caterpillars are the largest item, 

 38.31 percent of the whole food for the year. No grasshoppers or 

 crickets were found. 



Of the vegetable food, corn was discovered in one stomach, evidently taken on 

 trial. Fruit was eaten to a moderate extent (5.15 per cent), mostly in mid- 

 summer, and included raspberries, blackberries, and strawberries, which might 

 have been of cultivated varieties, but probably were not. The wild fruits were such 

 as grow by the wayside and in swamps, as elderberries, hackberries, blueberries, 

 huckleberries, and mulberries. Seeds of various kinds, as sumac — including poison 

 ivy — bayberry, or wax myrtle, aggregate 4.07 per cent. It is difficult to draw the 

 line between broken seeds and mast in stomachs of the tufted tit, but, together con- 

 sidered as mast, these form more than two-thirds of the vegetable food. While 

 largely composed of acorns, there is no doubt that chinquapins and beechnuts and 

 many smaller seeds enter into its composition. As thus defined, mast amounts to 

 23.4 per cent of the v^hole food, comprising 95 per cent of that eaten in November, 

 50.42 per cent in January, and 55.97 per cent in February; in fact, it is the 

 principal vegetable food eaten from August to February. That such small birds 

 should crush such hard nuts as acorns and chinquapins is surprising, but the 

 broken fragments found in the stomachs well demonstrate their ability. 



M. P. Skinner (1928) writes: 



During the winter at least [in North Carolina], the favorite food of Titmice is 

 the acorns supplied by the innumerable shrub oaks, post oaks and turkey oaks. 

 From January to March, I found them hunting acorns, occasionally on the ground, 

 but generally in the trees themselves. Quite often they knocked the acorn from 

 its twig and then flew down to the ground after it. Titmice do not open their 

 bills wide enough to admit the whole acorn, but tliey sometimes pick it up by 

 its stem, or more oiten they simply ."^pear the nut with their sharp, closed bill and 

 fly up to a limb with it that way. Once on a suitable limb, the acorn is firmly 

 held between the bird's two feet and strong downward blows are rained upon it. 

 This hammering is rapid and very effective, so that it does not take long to 

 scale off the shell, and then the soft interior meat is eaten in small pieces. * * ♦ 

 At times they spring out after insects flying by them, and sometimes they tear 

 the tent nests of caterpillars to pieces. On February 11, 1927, near the Mid 

 Pines Club, a Titmouse picked up an oak apple an inch or more in diameter, 

 carried it in its bill to the crotch of a tree and there dug through its half inch 

 of tough material to feed on the hundred or so small white grubs in the center. 



Dr. H. C. Oberholser (1896) saw one hammering away at a half- 

 punctured cocoon of a Polyphemus moth. B. J. Blincoe (1923) saw 

 one feeding on cultivated Concord grapes. Dr. Dickey (MS.) has seen 

 it catch flying insects, including a small butterfly or moth ; the wings 

 of Lepidoptera are torn off and only the soft body is eaten. He in- 

 cludes wild cherries and service-berries in the food. Others have added 

 dogwood berries and those of the Virginia-creeper. In winter, titmice 

 will come readily to feeding stations to eat suet and bread and doughnut 



