144 THE BIRDS OF THE BRITISH ISLES. 



eyestreak, and a bar on the wing are also white. The nape, 

 wings and tail are blue ; the back is yellowish green ; the under 

 parts mostly sulphur-yellow with a dark line down the abdomen. 

 The bill is black, the legs bluish grey, and the irides dark 

 brown. The young are much yellower than the old birds. 

 Length, 4*3 ins. Wing, 2*4 ins. Tarsus, 75 in. 



Crested Titmouse. Parus cristafus Linn. 



Prazak, who recognised so many distinct races of tits, found 

 the Scottish Crested Tit, P. c. scottcus Praz., more olive on the 

 upper parts and browner on the flanks, as well as slightly 

 shorter in the wing, than the two sub-species of northern and 

 central Europe. Our resident form (Plate 64) is restricted to 

 the pine woods of the Spey Valley, and seldom strays far from 

 its haunts. A few vagrant Crested Tits have been met with in 

 England, but only two have been critically examined ; one, 

 taken at Whitby in 1872, corresponds with the Northern 

 P. c. cristatus Linn., and Mr. Witherby considers that another, 

 taken in the Isle of Wight, is referable to the Central European 

 P. c. 7nitratiis Brehm, in which the crest and cheeks are tinged 

 with buff. 



Outside its Scottish nesting area, some thirty miles in length 

 and two or three miles wide, the Crested Tit will not be met 

 with in our islands, unless as a very exceptional wanderer from 

 the Continent, for the bird is hardly migratory, but whether in 

 Scotland or on the Continent, where it is widespread, it is an 

 easy tit to recognise, for besides its erectile crest, the tip of 

 which is often recurved, its gorget and collar are distinctive. 

 It is, like other tits, talkative, and one of its notes sounded to 

 my ears like the sharp call of the Robin. The birds keep up 

 a constant z'ee^ zee^ see, similar to that of the Coal-Tit, but an 

 occasional churring sound was, when I heard it, more inter- 

 rupted than the similar call of most tits. Its actions are typical 



