BLUE TITMOUSE. I4I 



seeds of angelica. When the parents were constantly taking 

 insects up to the young, the male would occasionally give his 

 captures to the female, and another observer noticed the same 

 habit. She received the gifts with fluttering wings, and so far 

 as I could judge accepting them for her own benefit and did 

 not carry them to the nest. 



The Willow-Tit is distinguished from the Marsh-Tit by a 

 sooty-brown instead of a glossy blue-black cap ; the general 

 colour is otherwise similar, though the under parts are more 

 buff and the flanks distinctly more rufous ; the pale buff edgings 

 to the secondaries form a light patch on the closed wing. The 

 feathers of the crown are longer, but this is not an easily 

 noticed character, but the more graduated tail — not square — 

 shows distinctly when spread. Length, 4*5 ins. Wing, 2*45 

 ins. Tarsus, '55 in. 



Blue Titmouse. Panis mndtus Linn. 



The British form of the Blue Tit, P. c. obsciirus Praz. (Plate 

 57), is slightly smaller and rather darker and greener than 

 the European bird. The majority of our resident Blue Tits do 

 not migrate, however far they may roam in winter within our 

 islands ; large numbers of immigrants reach our shores in some 

 autumns, but only a single authenticated Continental bird has 

 been recorded. The differences are either so slight that they 

 cannot be appreciated and therefore are of little value, or the 

 so-called British form is also found on the Continent. 



There are commoner but few more popular birds than the 

 Blue Tit or Tom-Tit, and this is due to its perky acrobatic 

 performances rather than to its neat but by no means gaudy 

 dress. There may be no bird visible in the garden when we 

 hang up the chicken-bone or cocoanut, but before we have 

 returned to the house a Blue Tit is picking bits from the 

 denuded sternum or its tail alone protruding from the hole in 



