The Bush-Tits 
who take the initiative, and involuntarily direct the movements of the 
younger or more timid individuals which follow along after. During 
such slowly moving excursions, each individual is rapidly gleaning through 
the foliage, assuming all possible attitudes in its search for tiny insects 
among leaves and twigs. The attention of each is on himself as a usual 
thing, but each is continually uttering a faint but characteristic simple 
location-note, a note of all’s-well which indicates safety and also the where¬ 
abouts of the main body to stragglers, and each individual to any other.” 
The question of the 
number of Bush-Tits 
which may occur in a 
winter troupe perhaps 
deserves further atten¬ 
tion. While twenty may 
be a fair average, I recall 
having seen very much 
larger troupes near Santa 
Barbara. One day while 
working along a south- 
sloping oak- and chapar¬ 
ral-covered hillside be¬ 
yond the Riviera I saw 
what I judged might be 
a hundred birds cross a 
certain opening. Then 
as the route halted, the 
discharge tree, or posi¬ 
tive pole of the Psaltri- 
parine battery, was seen 
to be still “full” of Bush- 
Tits. Presently some 
fairy recall was sounded, 
whereupon seventy- 
seven birds, by actual 
count, returned across 
the open. 
Those who have fol¬ 
lowed the fortunes of 
these little gleaners with 
any degree of care must 
have heard at some time 
other the confusion- 
Taken in Washington 
NEST OF BUSH-TIT, IN SITU 
Photo by the Author 
or 
