( 382 ) 
CHESTNUT-CROWNED TITMOUSE. 
PARUS MINIMUS, TOWNSEND. 
PLATE CCCLIII. Mate anp Femate. 
My friend Nutratt’s account of this Titmouse is as follows. ‘“ We 
first observed the arrival of this plain and diminutive species on the 
banks of the Wahlamet, near to its confluence with the Columbia, about 
the middle of May. Hopping about in the hazel thickets which border 
the alluvial meadows of the river, they appeared very intent and in- 
dustriously engaged in quest of small insects, chirping now and then a 
slender call of recognition. They generally flew off in pairs, but were 
by no means shy, and kept always in the low bushes or the skirt of the 
woods. The following day I heard the males utter a sort of weak 
monotonous short and quaint song, and about a week afterwards I had 
the good fortune to find the nest, about which the male was so parti- 
cularly solicitous as almost unerringly to draw me to the spot, where 
hung from a low bush, about 4 feet from the ground, his little curious 
mansion, formed like a long purse, with a round hole for entrance near 
the summit. It was made chiefly of moss, down, lint of plants, and 
lined with some feathers. The eggs. six in number, were pure white, 
and already far gone towards being hatched. I saw but few other 
pairs in this vicinity, but on the 21st of June, in the dark woods near 
Fort Vancouver, I again saw a flock of about twelve, which, on making 
a chirp something like their own call, came around me very familiarly, 
and kept up a most incessant and querulous chirping. The following 
season (April 1836) I saw numbers of these birds in the mountain 
thickets around Santa Barbara, in Upper California, where they again 
seemed untiringly employed in gleaning food in the low bushes, pick- 
ing up or catching their prey in all postures, sometimes like the com- 
mon Chickadee, head downwards, and letting no cranny or corner escape 
their unwearied search. As we did not see them in the winter, they 
migrate in all probability throughout Mexico and the Californian pe- 
ninsula at this season.” 
According to Dr Townsenp, “ the Chinooks name it a-ha-ke-lok. 
