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CHEST NUT- CROWNED TITMOUSE. 
Parus minimus, Towns. 
PLATE CXXX. — Male and Female. 
My friend Nuttall’s account of this Titmouse is as follows : “We first 
observed the arrival of this plain and diminutive species on the banks of 
the Wahlamet, near to its confluence with the Columbia, about the middle 
of May. Hopping about in the hazel thickets which border the alluvial 
meadows of the river, they appeared very intent and industriously engaged 
in quest of small insects, chirping now and then a slender call of recogni- 
tion. They generally flew off in pairs, but were by no means shy, and 
kept always in the low bushes or the skirt of the woods. The following 
day I heard the males utter a sort of weak monotonous short and 
quaint song, and about a week afterwards I had the good fortune to find the 
nest, about which the male was so particularly solicitous as almost un- 
erringly" to draw me to the spot, where hung from a low bush, about four 
feet from the ground, his little curious mansion, formed like a long purse, 
with a round hole for entrance near the summit. It was made chiefly 
of moss, down, lint of plants, and lined with some feathers. The eggs, six 
in number, were pure white, and already far gone towards being hatched. 
I saw but few other pairs in this vicinity, but on the 21st of June, in the 
dark woods near Port Vancouver, I again saw a flock of about twelve, 
which, on making a chirp something like their own call, came around me 
very familiarly, and kept up a most incessant and querulous chirping. 
The following season (April 1836) I saw numbers of these birds in the 
mountain thickets around Santa Barbara, in Upper California, where they 
again seemed untiringly employed in gleaning food in the low bushes, 
picking up or catching their prey in all postures, sometimes like the com- 
mon Chickadee, head downwards, and letting no cranny or corner escape 
their unwearied search. As we did not see them in the winter, they 
migrate in all probability throughout Mexico and the Californian penin- 
sula at this season.” 
According to Mr. Townsend, “ the Chinooks name it a-ha-lce-lok. It is 
a constant resident about the Columbia river ; hops about in the bushes, 
and frequently hangs from the twigs in the manner of other Titmice, 
twittering all the while with a rapid enunciation resembling the words 
thshish, tshist, tsee, twee. The irides are bright yellow.” 
