Titmouse
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
in ornithology, a popular name for any individual of the sub-family Parinæ. They are remarkable for the boldly defined color of their plumage and their quick, irregular movements, running rapidly along branches in quest of insects, and often clinging thereto with their back downward. They feed not only on insects, but on grain and seeds, and not infrequently kill young and sickly birds with strokes of their stout, strong bill. They are very pugnacious, and the hens show great courage in defense of their nests. The young are fed chiefly on caterpillars, and a pair of blue tits have been observed to carry a caterpillar to their nest, on an average, every two minutes, during the greater part of the day, so that these birds must be extremely serviceable in preventing the increase of noxious insects. The chickadee, so named from its note, is the blackcap titmouse (Parus atricapillus), found chiefly in the North American continent. Seven species are well known in Europe; but one, the crested titmouse (Parus cristatus), s), is only an accidental visitor. The great titmouse (P. major) is about six inches long; head and throat black, cheeks white, back, breast, and sides yellowish, wings and tail grayish. The blue titmouse (P. cæruleus), which is so called from the bluish tinge in its plumage, and the coal titmouse (P. ater), named from its black head and neck, are the commonest British species; the others are the long tailed titmouse (Acredula caudata, Parus caudatus), the marsh titmouse (P. palustris), and the bearded titmouse (Panurus biarmicus), or reedling.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Collier's in 1921 put nearly every one of these birds in a single genus Parus; DNA and anatomy have since broken it up, so the chickadee is now Poecile atricapillus, the blue tit Cyanistes caeruleus, the coal tit Periparus ater and the crested tit Lophophanes cristatus. Two of the birds on the 1921 list have left the family altogether: the long-tailed titmouse is now Aegithalos caudatus in the Aegithalidae, and the bearded titmouse or reedling, Panurus biarmicus, is not a tit at all but the sole member of its own family, closer to the larks. The crested tit, called here only an accidental visitor, is in fact a resident breeder in the old pine forests of the Scottish Highlands. What has held up best is the natural history: the pugnacity, the caterpillar-hunting and even the killing of weaker birds are all still described, and great tits have been recorded preying on hibernating bats, while blue tits famously learned to open the foil caps of doorstep milk bottles, a habit tracked as it spread across Britain from the 1920s onward.
Written for this edition, 2026.