PLAIN TITMOUSE. 111 
hat. This Titmouse stayed near me as long as I remained in that part of the woods, 
and pursued me a short distance, screaming loudly Wait-wait-wait-wait, while I 
continued my way through the forest. Never before have I seen such boldness and 
confidence exhibited by a wild bird. 
A pair of these Titmice took up their abode near my house where I could observe 
their ways without any difficulty. Usually they were seen hammering on branches and 
trunks of the trees, in order to gain access to hidden insets, their eggs and larvee. 
This hammering or pecking is a peculiarity of all Titmice. 
In its breeding habits it is exactly like the common Tufted Titmouse. It usually 
nests in holes abandoned by Woodpeckers, but one pair. built their nest in a bird box, 
which I had put up in a post-oak near my house. In spite of the attacks of a pair of 
Bewick’s Wrens they succeeded in rearing a brood. The eggs, five to seven in number, 
are white, marked with reddish-brown spots, which are most numerous on the large 
end. It is a rare bird in Lee County, Texas, but much more common farther west. 
NAMES: B.LackK-crEsTED Titmouse, Texas Titmouse.—Texanische Haubenmeise (German). 
SCIENTIFIC NAMES: PARUS ATRICRISTATUS Cassin (1850). Lophophaues atricristatus Cassin (1853). 
Lophophanes atrocristatus Coues (1878). 
DESCRIPTION: Sexes alike. ‘Plumbeous, with a shade of olive, the wings and tail rather darker and 
purer, edged with the color of the back, or a more hoary shade of the same. Beneath, dull ashy- 
whitish, especially on the breast; the abdomen, whiter; the sides, chestnut-brown as in P. bicolor. 
Extreme forehead and lores, whitish; entire crest, glossy black; feet, plumbeous.”” (Coues.) 
Length, a little over 5 inches; wings, 2.95; tail, 2.95 inches. 
PLAIN TITMOUSE. 
Parus inornatus GAMB. 
N REGARD to the Piain Titmouse, I beg leave to quote the words of my learned 
q friend, Dr. Elliott Coues. Whatever he has written about our birds is incompar- 
able. ‘Throughout the Colorado Basin,’”’ he writes, “the familiar Tufted Titmouse of 
the Eastern States is replaced by the ‘plain’ species, well named ‘inornatus’—a peculiar 
sordid bird, the dull monotony of whose plumage is unrelieved by a single touch of 
color. It inhabits not only a portion of western Texas, the whole of New Mexico, 
Arizona, and corresponding latitudes of California, but also portions of Colorado, Utah, 
and Nevada. How far north it extends is not precisely ascertained; but we may 
suppose it to be distributed at least half-way across the three last named Territories, 
which lie in a tier together. Its southern extreme, similarly is uncertain; but, wherever 
the ‘ragged edge’ of its habitat may run, the watershed of the great Colorado of the 
West is its home, and there it resides continually. 
“It is another discovery which the lamented Gambel made in California, where he 
first found it, in November, near Monterey, among the evergreen oaks of that vicinity. 
Since his time, nearly all the explorers of the South-west have also met with the bird, 
