CHICADEE, OR BLACK-CAPT TITMOUSE. 
245 
But after a while the usual drawling note again occurs. 
These birds, like many others, are very subject to the at- 
tacks of vermin, and they accumulate in great numbers 
around that part of the head and front which is least 
accessible to their feet. 
The European bird is supposed to be partial to marshy 
situations. Ours has no such predilection, nor does the 
American bird, that I can learn, ever lay up or hide any 
store of seeds for provision, a habit reported of the foreign 
family. In this fact, with so many others, we have an 
additional evidence of affinity between the Titmouse and 
Jay.* Even the blue color, so common with the latter, is 
possessed by several species of this genus. Indeed from 
their aggregate relation, and omnivorous habit, we see no 
better place of arrangement for these birds than succinct- 
ly after the Garruli or Jays. 
The Chicadee is 5J inches in length, and 6J in alar extent. The 
throat, head, and ridge of the neck black. Cheeks, ears, and a line 
to the base of the bill, white. Above cinereous, tinted with brown, 
The wings darker, edged with whitish. Beneath, the rest of the plu- 
mage is white, tinted with greyish-brown. The bill black. Tongue 
blunt. Legs bluish-grey. Iris dark hazel. The sexes and young , to 
me, are hardly distinguisable apart. I have never seen the young 
with brown heads ; they have the head quite black from the time they 
leave the nest. 
Note. — Although in compliance with the opinion of Temminck, 
I have referred the Chicadee to the European species, yet there is a 
considerable discrepancy in the habits of the two. The latter appears 
to form a soft nest of down and feathers ; ours makes, I believe, no 
bedding for its nest whatever. 
The Hudson’s Bay Titmouse is said to have a ferruginous brown 
head ; to utter scarcely any note beyond a chirp ; and to dwell chiefly 
among Juniper thickets. It is also said to build in the same bushes, 
in June, a nest of grass, lined with feathers, containing usually 5 
eggs. It is also known by the aborigines under a different name 
from the Chicadee. 
* This curious relation was, I believe, first pointed out by Prince Bonaparte in the 
history of Steller’s Jay. 
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