THE SAVAGE WORLD. 
335 
having a greenish hue; the wings gray, mottled with black and white; the 
tail black, with a slight edging of bottle-green, and the rest of the plumage of 
a jetty black. The rufous-bellied titmouse is found in southern India and 
Nepaul. 
The cape titmouse is one of the most ingenious builders of the family, 
native to South Africa, and is noted for the peculiar shape of its nest, as may be 
seen in the illustration. The nest is in the shape of a bottle, and is made of 
cotton. The male constructs for 
himself a saucer-like pocket on the 
outside of the neck, while the in¬ 
terior is given to the female and 
her brood. While the mother is 
in the nest the father sits in his 
little sentry-box faithfully guarding 
the family safety. Instantly the 
mother leaves her little brood, the 
father, wishing to accompany her, 
closes up the narrow entrance of 
the bottle by beating it with his 
strong little wings till his end is 
accomplished. 
The Penduline Titmouse is 
also noted for its nest-building skill. 
This nest, suspended from the 
branches of trees, has exactly the 
form of a chemist’s retort, but in¬ 
stead of being built of hard mate¬ 
rial only fine moss and down enter 
into its composition. The opening 
is woven with such care that not 
one fibre projects beyond another. 
How this bird, while on the wing, 
enters the inverted neck of the nest 
it is difficult to tell, as the open¬ 
ing has scarcely the diameter of its 
body. But it darts in at full 
flight and without disturbing a 
single fibre. 
In the United States the two 
most common and interesting 
species are the Black Capped Titmouse, more commonly called Chicadee 
{Parus atricapillus) , and the Crested Titmouse (. Lophophanes bicolor) whose 
merry notes of peter , peter , peter , make all the woods cheerful. These two are 
commonly seen together, associated often with the brown creeper and spotted 
woodpecker, all of which varieties exhibit wonderful activity in the search for 
food. The two species named are very like in habits, both building their nests 
in an abandoned squirrel-hole, or fashioning their habitation, at the expense of 
great labor, by excavating into decayed tree branches, and both also lay five 
white eggs. The crested titmouse is often called tomtit , and though small is a 
nest of cape titmouse ( Parus capensis ). 
