I40 THE BIRDS OF THE BRITISH ISLES. 



according to our present knowledge is local and thinly dis- 

 tributed ; in Scotland it apparently replaces the Marsh-Tit ; it 

 has been noted in Wales. Macgillivray's "Marsh-Tit," de- 

 scribed from Scottish birds, is an excellent description of the 

 true Willow-Tit ; he says " it is readily distinguishable by the 

 dull or brownish black colour of the head." The notes of 

 the bird evidently vary considerably ; a clear tsip^ tsip, tsip^ 

 may have been the ones that reminded one observer of the 

 preliminary part of the Wood -Wren's song. The most ordinary 

 call is a slightly harsh zee, zee, zee, with mores- sound and 

 longer drawn out than the corresponding notes of the Marsh. 

 Occasionally a double note, ipsee, ipsee, is repeated four or five 

 times. The clear tsip I took for the song ; when the hen was 

 sitting the cock would perch and repeat this note within a few 

 feet of the nesting hole. Another note was a simple tee, tee, 

 tee, reminiscent of a Blue-Tit, and twice I heard a louder call 

 hive the twang of a stringed instrument. 



Whatever the Marsh-Tit may do, the Willow-Tit certainly at 

 times excavates its own nesting hole, even piercing hard bark ; 

 this is usually in a rotten stump or in a tree, more or less 

 decayed. Two nests that 1 have had under observation were 

 in white willows, the first high in a dead branch, the second in 

 a big crack in the trunk. The bird in some cases carries the 

 chips to a distance before dropping them, but in others leaves 

 some, at any rate, littered at the foot of the tree ; the birds I 

 watched excavating took the chips for several yards, not drop- 

 ping them until they had crossed a " ride " in the wood. Most 

 of the nests examined have been slight cups of felted material, 

 mostly fur, hair and wood chips, but in one or two cases 

 feathers were present ; moss, except in some Continental nests, 

 was not used for the foundation. The number of eggs varies 

 from six to nine, and the reddish spots are small, or large 

 enough to be called blotches. The food probably differs little 

 from that of other tits ; I have seen both birds feeding on the 



