TUFTED TITMOUSE. 1 45 
iris, and which our bird had probably heard and mimicked in its 
distant clime. 
The Peto, besides insects, like the Jay, to which he is allied, 
chops up acorns, cracks nuts and hard and shelly seeds to get 
at their contents, holding them meanwhile in his feet. He 
also searches and pecks decayed trees and their bark with con- 
siderable energy and industry in quest of larvse j he often also 
enters into hollow trunks, prying after the same objects. In 
these holes they commonly roost in winter, and occupy the 
same secure situations, or the holes of the small Woodpecker, 
for depositing and hatching their eggs, which takes place early 
in April or in May, according to the different parts of the 
Union they happen to inhabit. Sometimes they dig out a 
cavity for themselves with much labor, and always line the 
hollow with a variety of warm materials. Their eggs, about six 
to eight, are white with a few small specks of brownish red near 
the larger end. The whole family, young and old, may be seen 
hunting together throughout the summer and winter, and keep- 
ing up a continued mutual chatter. 
According to the observations of Wilson it soon becomes 
familiar in confinement, and readily makes its way out of a 
wicker cage by repeated blows at the twigs. It may be fed 
on hemp-seed, cherry-stones, apple-pippins, and hickory nuts, 
broken and thrown in to it. In its natural state, like the rest 
of its vicious congeners, it sometimes destroys small birds by 
blows on the skull. 
This species belongs to the Carolinian faunal area, and occurs 
regularly only from about the 40th parallel southward ; north of 
that it is but an accidental straggler. 
VOL. I. — 10 
