88 BULLETIN 195, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



The wren-tit finds its food principally on the bark surfaces, and to a 

 less extent on the leaves and fruiting stems. Karely they go to the 

 ground. Not infrequently an individual flies up and hangs inverted 

 while hunting among the leaves of live oaks for larvae, as a bushtit 

 or titmouse might do. A few times individuals hovered at sticky 

 monkey flowers. Once one caught a small butterfly which flew near, 

 snipped off its wings, and swallowed the body. 



Small objects, such as most of the insects and poison-oak berries, 

 are swallowed whole; large ones are broken up. After obtaining a 

 large morsel, the wren-tit resorts to a twig, places the object under 

 one foot, and pulls off small pieces with its bill. Snowberries and 

 thimbleberries are regularly handled in this way, elderberries some- 

 times. The berry is pecked until the skin is broken, and then pieces 

 are pulled off and swallowed. Seeds met with are discarded, though 

 the large flesh-coated seed of poison oak is swallowed and later dis- 

 gorged. Large bread crimibs were held with the foot, or small pieces 

 were broken off with a quick shake of the head. 



Wren-tits drink water when it is available either from pools or the 

 drops of moisture that collect on the leaves, but in much of their 

 range they appear to do without water for periods of several weeks. 



Behavior. — A wren-tit's habitat is such that most of its movements 

 are a series of hops or flights of a few feet from one twig to the next. 

 Individuals do not cross open spaces of even 30 or 40 feet readily or 

 frequently. The longest flight I observed was about 150 feet over 

 open grassland, but such flights are unusual. 



Care of the plumage, which involves the usual preening and bath- 

 ing, has two features of special interest. Preening is usually done by 

 the individual's working over the feathers with its bill, or where the 

 bill cannot reach, with its foot Not infrequently, however, the mem- 

 bers of a pair or family preen one another. The activity is usually 

 limited to the region of the head but sometimes includes the feathers 

 of the back, sides, breast, and crissum. The method is always the 

 same : the bill is thrust into the feathers and a single one is manipu- 

 lated between the mandibles from the calamus to the tip of the vane. 

 Bathing in puddles when they occur near bushes includes the usual 

 bobbing and splashing, but the plumage is moistened by a series of 

 momentary dips rather than one long one. Rain- or fog-moistened 

 brush is perhaps a commoner source of water for bathing. Birds 

 move about in the leafy crowns, brushing and bumping against the 

 wet leaves until their plumage is well dampened, and then the cus- 

 tomary shaking and preening take place. Once a bird was obsei*ved 

 to dust-bathe. 



I observed the roosting habits in both cage and wild birds and 

 found that the pair, and presumably a family, roost together. A pair 



