510 
BIRDS OF NEW MEXICO 
of the same width. A member of an inquiring flock that came into a 
nut pine within three or four feet of me apparently raised its eyebrows 
in its curiosity, and in doing so actually widened the white super- 
ciliaries till its black; cap was narrowed to an insignificant black line. 
On the other hand, the abrasion of the feathers previous to the molt 
makes the white stripe narrower than in the fresh fall plumage. In 
the August molt, a specimen taken had new wing and tail feathers 
although its body was still pinfeathery. 
Under the heading, Mountain Chickadee with an Adopted Family, 
Mr. Jensen writes of finding one of the birds in a bird box incubating 
six eggs of her own and three of the Gray Titmouse. He took out the 
chickadee's eggs and some time later found the foster mother busy 
feeding four young Titmice (1925d, p. 593). It is good to know that 
boxes may attract these delightfully friendly little house hunters 
around our homes. 
They may be met with almost anywhere in the forested mountains. 
In Santa Clara Canyon, where we found them in the oaks, nut pines, 
and junipers of the south slope, down along the creek, in the turns where 
the sun came in, they were in the alders and birches together with 
migrating warblers, vireos, and flycatchers. But they are found in 
the high, dark, coniferous forests as well, and it is here that their 
cheeiy notes are most gratefully heard. In variety of note they 
almost equal the Tufted Titmice. Their clear phoe'-be whistle is given 
occasionally, and there is a complicated guttural outburst suggesting 
skit'-tie-dee or skit'-tle-litUe-dee; also the clear phoe'-be followed by a 
guttural chick'-ahy chick'-ah-dee. Besides these, there is an endless 
variety of small conversational notes, all doubly welcome to the ear 
in the silent forest. 
GRAY TITMOUSE: Baeol6phus inornatus griseus (Itidgway) 
Plate 52 
Description. — Length: About 5.7-6.1 inches, wing 2.8-3, tail 2.4-2.7, bill 
.4-5, tarsus .8-.9. Crested. Adults: Plain , unmarked; upperparts light gray; 
underparts whitish gray, becoming whitish on belly. 
Range. —Breeds, and is presumably resident, in Upper Sonoran Zone in foot¬ 
hills of the mountains of the arid interior, from desert ranges east of the Sierra 
Nevada in California to Idaho, Wyoming, and the eastern foothills of the Rocky 
Mountains in Colorado south to southeastern New Mexico, southern Arizona, 
and the desert ranges of the Colorado Valley. 
State Records. —The migration of the Gray Titmouse is about as restricted 
as thafof any bird in New Mexico; it is practically resident wherever found and its 
slight movements are to be considered wanderings rather than migration. It 
ranges over the whole mountainous part of the State east to the Guadalupe Moun¬ 
tains (Fuertes); Capitan Mountains, Corona, in Gallinas Mountains (Gaut); Santa 
Rosa Wells to Montoya, June 9-20, 1903, 4,600-4,700 feet (Bailey); near Koehler 
Junction, September 22, 1913 (Kalmbach); and is common in Upper Sonoran Zone, 
