COLE TITMOUSE. 
175 
wall or crevice in a rock, usually in the neighbourhood of 
forests or woods of pine or fir. The materials consist 
chiefly of short green ground moss, and the nest is lined with 
the hair of small quadrupeds, sometimes intermixed with 
feathers. The female deposits in this warm little cavern her 
six or eight eggs, of the size, shape, and colouring represented 
in the plate. No. 79. Incubation lasts about a fortnight, 
and the male and female sit by turns : the young, when 
hatched, are fed with small green caterpillars. These birds 
have two broods in the year, the first of which may be seen 
on the wing about the middle of May. 
The usual note of the Cole Titmouse is much like that 
of the foregoing species, being zit! zit! and the call-note 
is like zit-tee ! 
To close the history of these little birds, let us, finally, 
point out their great utility in destroying a vast number of 
insects, hurtful to forest-trees in general, which, if not kept 
within due limits by these and many other of their fellow 
agents, would rob the woods of their freshness and verdure. 
The entire length of the Cole Titmouse is four and a half 
inches. The wing, from the carpus to the extremity of the 
longest quill-feather, is two inches and a quarter in length ; 
the first quill-feather measures nine lines, the second one inch 
and a half; the third exceeds the second by about three 
lines, but is scarcely so long as the fourth, fifth, and sixth, 
which are the longest in the wing. The tail measures one 
inch eight lines, is slightly forked, and extends four lines be¬ 
yond the tips of the folded wings. The beak, which is 
longer and thinner than in the Marsh Titmouse, is in length 
four lines from the forehead to the tip, and covered at the 
base with stij0F reflected hairs, which conceal the nostrils. The 
tarsi measure scarcely seven lines, and the feet are rather 
stout. 
The elegant plumage of this little species is as follows : 
