PAEID^-^PARINjE: 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 2d; wings 
barely or not longer than the tail ; 
tail-feathers not stiff nor acuminate ; 
tarsi scutellate, 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 readily 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 are 
rather southern, and all but one of 
them western. Most of them are 
hardy birds, enduring the rigors of 
Fig. 135. — European Greater Titmouse, Parjtswaior. (From Dixon.) winter 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 ; stiU they have a pleasing look, with 
theii- trim form and the tasteful colors of the head. 
7. Subfamily PARIN/E: 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 decurved tip, its under as well as upper outline convex. Rictus 
without true bristles, but base of the bill covered with tufts of bristly feathers directed forward, 
entirely concealing the nostrils. Feet stout ; tarsi distinctly scutellate, 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 with ten primaries, of which the 
first is very short or spurious, scarcely or not half as long as the second ; wing 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 
