118 HISTORY OF THE BRIDLED TITMOUSE 



WOLL WEBER'S Titmouse came to us with letters of in- 

 troduction from tbree very eminent ornithologists, all 

 written in 1850, and so nearly simultaneously that it is a close 

 question of actual priority. The Prince Bonaparte named it 

 in honor of Wollweber in the issue of the " Gomptes Eendus " 

 dated September, 1850. Mr. Cassin described it as Parm an- 

 nexus in the "Proceedings" of the Philadelphia Academy for 

 October, 1850; and it must have been close upon this date 

 that Dr. Cabanis published a description under the name of 

 Loplwphanes galeatus, adopting the term from Prof. Lichtenstein's 

 museum name, Parus galeatus. For, though the whole Theil of 

 the " Museum Heineanum " which treats of the Singvogel is 

 dated 1850-1, it was published iu sheets, and not furnished 

 with an introduction until October, 1851, and the name occurs 

 on the second page of the twelfth "signature", the fourteenth 

 of which bears date January, 1851. No one, however, appears 

 to dispute Bonaparte's actual precedence in the matter. Mr. 

 Cassin figured the bird with his description. The following 

 year, 1851, Professor Westermann also gave a figure in the 

 "Bijdragen tot de Dierkunde"; for the third time it was re- 

 figured by Professor Baird, in the Mexican Boundary Survey 

 Eeport; a fifth illustration is found in 

 Dr. Cooper's work ; a sixth in my " Key " ; 

 and a seventh in the " History of Isorth 

 American Birds". The curious striping 

 of the head is a specific character which 

 immediately attracts attention, and one 

 well adapted to pictorial illustration. The 

 figure here given, reproduced from the 

 " Key", is a copy (none too good) of the 

 FIG. 19.— Head of Bridled head of that iu the Mexican Boundary 



Titmouse. EcpOrt. 



This elegant little species is better known stuffed than alive; 

 the Stubengelehrten and some of the '■'■ Balglcramer'" (among whom 

 it is whispered the namer of Parus galeatus is ranked by some) 

 have had it pretty much their own way. Yet the remark, made 

 by Dr. Brewer in 1874, that "Dr. Kennerly is the only one of 

 our naturalists who has mentioeed meeting the species in its 

 living form ", was not strictly correct. For one, I had become 

 familiar with the bird at Fort Whipple, Arizona, and had 

 summed my observations in a brief phrase : — " Permanent 

 resident; common, more so at least than the preceding [L. 



