BIRltS OF PENNSYL VANIA. 317 



Sitta pusilla LATH. 



Brown-headed Nuthatch. 



DESCRIPTION. 



Smallest of ail our species. 



Bill rather stout ; maxilla and terminal third of mandible black, rest of lower man- 

 dible yellowish (dried skins). Length about 4 inches or a little more ; extentabout 

 8. Top of head and nape brown ; lores and streak back of eye similar to pileum but 

 darker ; a distinct white spot on hind neck ; edge of wing and chin white ; under 

 part generally grayish, or pale-brownish white. Tail is less varied with white than 

 either of two last described species. 



Habitat." South Atlantic and Gulf States, north, regularly, to lower Maryland 

 and Virginia (lower Potomac, shores of Chesapeake Bay, etc.), casually to Ohio, 

 Michigan, Missouri (Pennsylvania?), etc." Ridgway. 



The Brown-headed Nuthatch, a southern bird, and one which is much 

 smaller than either of the two previously mentioned species, I have 

 never observed in Pennsylvania, where it is recorded as occurring" only 

 as a casual or accidental visitor. Dr. Turnbull (Birds of East Pennsyl- 

 vania) gives it as a rare straggler in summer to the southern counties. 

 The late C. D. Wood, had a specimen in his collection which he stated 

 had been captured near Philadelphia, in the autumn (about 1885). 



The stomach contents of twenty -three of these birds (adults and young-) 

 captured in Florida, during the winter and spring- months, and examined 

 by the writer consisted exclusively of insects, chiefly beetles, larvae and 

 ants. 



SUBFAMILY PARING. TITMICE. 

 THE TITMICE. 



About a dozen species and several subspecies of this group are recorded as belonging 

 to the fauna of North America ; of these three species only are found in Pennsylvania. 

 Two the Tufted Titmouse and Chickadee are common, but the Carolina Chickadee 

 appears to have been observed, except as a straggler, only in the southeastern part of 

 Pennsylvania (Chester, Delaware, Lancaster and Philadelphia counties). The nests, 

 composed of feathers, hair, cotton, grasses and other soft and warm materials, are 

 built in holes of trees or stumps ; the eggs, five to eight in number, are white, spotted 

 or speckled with reddish-brown. Titmice sometimes, like woodpeckers, excavate 

 holes in rotten wood, in which they rear their young, but usually I think these birds 

 endeavor to make use of old holes and commonly only dig new holes when they are 

 unable to find old ones which will be suitable for a nesting place. The writer has 

 examined eleven nests of Titmice, and but two of these were built in what appeared 

 to be new excavations, and both of these were in decaying willow stumps, along a 

 swamp in the edge of a woods. In summer Titmice are usually found in woods and 

 thickets, but in winter these active, vociferous and restless birds frequently come 

 singly or in small flocks about our yards and gardens. The Chickadee or "Tom-tit," 

 by which latter name he is known to many, is much more abundant than either of 

 the other species, and in the autumn and winter he is one of the frequent visitors to 

 orchards and shrubbery about houses. During the late spring, summer and early 

 fall Titmice subsist mainly on an insect diet, consisting principally of different 

 larvae, small beetles, plant-lice, spiders, ants, etc. In winter they devour various 



