The Plain Titmice 
Taken in San Diego County 
606 
forms a larger proportion of this bird’s fare—57 per cent, Professor Beal 
says—than in that of any other Titmouse. Fruit is sampled in season, 
but eaten chiefly out of season, that is, in late autumn and winter, when 
other forage fails. Weed-seeds, leaf-galls, and poison oak seeds make 
up a quarter of the half, but the staple article of diet is the acorn. This 
is oftenest secured from the ground, but the bird takes it up into the tree 
and opens it with many a yeoman blow, holding it tight in a crack of the 
bark the while. 
Early authorities 
asserted that the Plain 
Titmouse used only hol¬ 
lows already provided— 
old woodpecker holes 
and the like—for its nest. 
This is quite a mistake, 
although it is true that 
the birds will gratefully 
accept a “start,” 
whether from wood¬ 
pecker, wind crevice, or 
incipient decay. Two of 
the nests I have found 
(and not rifled) w’ere ex¬ 
cavated in the heart 
wood of live limbs of the 
blue oak (Quercus doug- 
lasi), not less than ten 
inches in diameter. A 
five-inch wall of oak 
affords good protection 
even from humans; but 
resolute collectors report 
that pure white or fairly 
spotted eggs, to the num¬ 
ber of five or six, are to 
be found within upon a 
luxurious cushion of fur. 
I once traced a 
Plain Titmouse to a hole 
about twenty feet up in 
one of those cliffs of 
mingled gravel and 
“dobe” which line the 
Photo by D. R. Dickey 
SO YOUNG AND SO PLAIN! 
