PA RID^ — PARING : TITMICE. 



263 



3. Family PARID^ : Titmice, or Chickadees. 



Ours are all small (under 7 inches 

 long) birds, at once distinguished 

 by having ten primaries, the 1st 

 much shorter than the 3d; wings 

 barely or not longer than the tail ; 

 tail-feathers not stiff nor acuminate ; 

 tarsi scuteUate, longer than the mid- 

 dle toe; anterior toes much soldered 

 at base ; nostrils concealed by dense 

 tufts, and bill compressed, stout, 

 straight, unnotched, and much 

 shorter than the head ; — characters 

 that readUy marked them off from 

 all their allies, as wrens, creepers, 

 etc. Really, they are hard to dis- 

 tinguish, technically, from jays ; 

 but all our jays are much over 7 

 inches long. 



They are distributed over North 

 America, but the crested species ai-e 

 rather southern, and all but one of 

 them western. Most of them are 

 hardy birds, enduring the rigors of 

 Fig. 135. -European Greater Titmouse, Jaj-M major. (Prom Dixon.) -(vinter without inconvenience, and, 

 as a consequence, none of them are properly migratory. They are musical, after a fashion of 

 their own, chirping a quaint ditty ; are active, restless, and very heedless of man's presence ; 

 and eat everything. Some of the western species build astonishingly large and curiously 

 shaped nests, pensile, like a bottle or purse with a hole in one side, as represented in fig. 140 ; 

 others live in knot-holes, and similar snuggeries that they usually dig out for themselves. 

 They are very prolific, laying numerous eggs, and raising more than one brood a season ; the 

 young closely resemble the parents, and there are no obvious seasonal or sexual changes of 

 plumage. All but one of our species are plainly clad ; still they have a pleasing look, with 

 tlieii' trim form and the tasteful colors of the head. 



7. Subfamily PARING: True Titmice. 



Exclusive of certain aberrant forms, usually allowed to constitute a separate subfamily, and 

 sometimes altogether removed from Paridce, the titmice compose a natural and pretty well 

 defined group, to which the foregoing diagnosis and remarks are particularly applicable, and 

 agree in the following characters : — Bill very short and stout, straight, compressed-conoid in 

 shape, not notched nor with deourved tip, its under as well as upper outline convex. Rictus 

 without true bristles, but base of the biU covered with tufts of bristly feathers directed forward, 

 entirely concealing the nostrils. Feet stout ; tarsi distinctly souteUate, longer than the middle 

 toe ; toes rather short, the anterior soldered together at the base for most of the length of the 

 basal joint of the middle one. Hind toe with an enlarged pad beneath, forming, .with the con- 

 solidated bases of the anterior toes, a broad firm sole. Wing vrith ten primaries, of which the 

 first is very short or spurious, scarcely or not half as long as the second ; vring as a whole 

 rounded, scarcely or not longer than the tail, which latter is rounded or graduated, and com- 

 posed of twelve narrow soft feathers, with rounded or somewhat truncated tips. Plumage 



