Alice Garcia, age 13, of Tacoma, Wash., for her question:

IS THE TITMOUSE A MOUSE?

The titmouse is definitely not a mouse. Titmouse is the name of a number of small, hardy birds that have long, soft feathers. They live in nearly all parts of the world and are related to the nuthatches. If you have more than one titmouse, you have titmice. The birds are very valuable because they destroy millions of eggs and larvae of harmful insects.

The chickadee is the most common North American titmouse. A larger type, the tufted titmouse, lives in the eastern United States, south to the Gulf Coast and west to the Great Plains. It is gray and has a high crest. It may repeat its call of "peto, peto, peto, peto, peto" for many hours.

The bush tit is found from lower California to the Columbia River in the Pacific Northwest.