136 THE BIRDS OF THE BRITISH ISLES. 



Sharps and Dresser (Plate 54), has long been considered a 

 good species ; its back, which in P. ate?' is bluish grey, is olive- 

 brown. Insular variation is further shown in Irish birds, in 

 most of which the whites on face and nipe are replaced by pale 

 yellow ; it has been named P. a. hiberniais Ogilvie-Grant. 

 The British form occurs in north-east Ireland and throughout 

 Great Britain, though absent from many of the Scottish 

 islands. 



A large white nape spot on the black head is the hall-mark 

 of the Coal-Tit ; by this we may know it when it visits the 

 garden and pick it out when trooping through the winter woods 

 with other tits. Sometimes these flocks consist of Coals alone. 

 In acrobatic skill and restless activity it resembles other tits, 

 though it more frequently pitches on a trunk, and in little hops 

 imitates the Creeper. Its food is similar to that of others ; it 

 is keen on beech-mast, picks out the seeds from larch and fir 

 cones, and joins Redpolls and Siskins in birches and alders. 

 During these food hunts it keeps up an incessant short flight 

 or flock call; the song, if song it can be called, is a strident 

 if-he^ if-ke, if-he, heard most frequently from January to June, 

 but also in autumn. One variant of this song or call ends with 

 a sharp tchi. 



A favourite nesting site is a hole in a rotting tree-stump, often 

 low down, and the nest is deep within the hole ; holes in the 

 ground, burrows of mouse or rabbit, chinks between the stones 

 in walls, old nests of Magpies or other large birds, and squirrel 

 dreys are also occupied. The materials, moss, hair and grass, 

 are closely felted together, and rabbit fur or feathers added for 

 lining; seven to el^en red spotted w-hite eggs (Plate 58) of 

 the usual tit type are laid, as a rule, in May, but second broods 

 are rare. 



The head, throat and neck are glossy blue-black, setting off 

 the white on the nape and sides of the face ; the back and wings 

 are olive-brown shading to brownish fawn on the rump ; the 



