224 



The Tufted Titmouse. 



orchards and forests, form a delightful 

 feature of the bleak winter landscape. We 

 have never observed in them any of the 

 traits of ferocity noted by Nuttall, and it is 

 certain that they associate in perfect amity 

 with other birds of similar habits, such as 

 the nuthatches and kinglets. We regard 

 their voices as cheerful and merry if not 

 always musical. Moreover, they seem to 

 have little fear of man, and if not com- 

 panionable are at least familiar little birds. 



The Tufted Titmouse is a bird of rather 

 Southern distribution, and on the Atlantic 

 coast is not commonly found much north 

 of New Jersey. The earlier writers re- 

 ported this bird as having a much more 

 northern distribution, and even as being 

 found in Greenland, but this is now known 

 to be erroneous. Specimens have been 

 taken in New York and Connecticut, but 

 they are quite unusual here and can only 

 be regarded as accidental. This Titmouse 

 breeds in the Southern S.tates and as far 

 north as New Jersey, and it is quite pos- 

 sible that we may sometimes learn of its 

 nesting in New England. 



It digs a hole in the tree much after the 

 manner of the woodpeckers, but instead of 

 being content to deposit its eggs on the 

 fine chips at the bottom, it makes a warm 

 nest by filling the hole with various soft 

 materials on which the eggs are deposited. 

 These are from six to eight in number, 

 pure white except for a circle of brown 

 dots about the larger end. In New Jersey 

 the eggs are laid toward the end of May, 

 but further south the nesting time is some- 

 what earlier. As soon as the young are 

 able to leave the nest they follow the 

 parents, and, Audubon says, continue with 

 them until the following spring. 



The food of the Tufted Titmouse con- 

 sists chiefly of insects and their eggs and 

 larvae. In spring and summer he chases 

 flying insects and captures them very 

 adroitly, but during the greater part of the 

 year his time is spent going over the trunks 



and branches of trees, peering into each 

 crack and cranny of the bark, in search of 

 the hidden stores of insect food which are 

 to be found in such situations. In the au- 

 tumn this bird also feeds upon the seeds of 

 weeds and on soft nuts. Like thej'ays the 

 Titmice are accustomed, when they secure 

 any bit of food that is too large to be read- 

 ily swallowed, to hold it under the foot, 

 and hammer at it with the bill until it is 

 broken into pieces small enough to be de- 

 voured. In this way it breaks up the larger 

 hard seeds, acorns and other nuts. One 

 which Wilson had in confinement was fed 

 on hemp seed, cherry stones, apple seeds 

 and hickory nuts, which were broken up 

 and placed in its cage. This bird, though 

 at first restless and making its way out of 

 its wicker cage by repeated blows of its 

 strong bill against the wood, soon became 

 familiar in confinement. 



The Tufted Titmouse is more musical 

 than most of its kind. Nuttall compares 

 its more common call or whistle to the clear 

 ringing notes of the Baltimore oriole, and 

 devotes a good deal of space to attempts 

 to convey an idea of its various notes by 

 syllables, but, as might be imagined, these 

 efforts at reproduction are not very suc- 

 cessful. Any attempt to reproduce musi- 

 cal sounds by other sounds which have in 

 them no music at all must necessarily fail. 

 The most that can be done by this method 

 is to convey an impression of the relative 

 times which the different notes bear to one 

 another. Some different system of nota- 

 tion must be devised before our birds' 

 songs can be reproduced so as to give any 

 just notion of them to one who is unfami- 

 liar with them. No one understood this 

 better than Nuttall. 



The flight of the Tufted Titmouse is 

 short and hurried, and its rounded con- 

 cave wings make a perceptible noise as it 

 passes one. It is much more at home in 

 the branches of a tree, where like all the 

 other Titmice it assumes all imaginable at- 



