The CAROLINA TITMOUSE (_Parus Carolinensis_), an American species, has
the bill black, the iris dark brown, and the feet bluish grey. The whole
upper part of the head and the hind neck are pure black, as is a large
patch on the throat and fore neck. Between these patches of black there
is a band of greyish white from the base of the bill down the side of the
neck, becoming broader and greyer behind. The back and wing-coverts are
ash-grey, tinged with brown; quills brown, margined with greyish blue, as
is the tail, which is more tinged with grey; lower parts greyish white,
tinged with brown; the sides more deeply tinted. The length of this bird
is four inches and a half, extent of wings six inches. The female is
similar to the male, but somewhat fainter in its tints.
The Carolina Titmouse is a constant inhabitant of the Southern States of
North America, extending from the lower parts of Louisiana through the
Floridas, as far as the borders of the Roanoke River, reaching eastward
as far as the State of New Jersey. In general it is found only in the
immediate vicinity of ponds and deep marshy and moist swamps; it is
rarely seen during the winter in greater numbers than one pair together,
and frequently singly, whereas the Black-cap Titmouse, which this species
much resembles, moves in flocks during the whole winter, frequenting
orchards, gardens, or the hedges and trees along the roads, entering
the villages, and coming to the wood piles of the farmers, whereas the
Southern species is never met with in such places at any time of the
year, and is at all seasons a shyer bird. The Carolina Titmouse breeds in
the holes abandoned by the Brown-headed Nuthatch, but we are as yet not
well informed concerning either its eggs or its nest.