431 



PARUS C(ERULEUS. THE BLUE TIT. 



BLUE TITMOUSE. TOMTIT. BLUE-CAP. BLUE-BONNET. HICK-MALL. 

 BILLY-BITER. OX-EYE. 



Fig. 182. 



Parus coeruleus. Linn. Syst. Nat. I. 341. 



Parus coeruleus. Lath. Ind. Orn. II. 566. 



Blue Titmouse. Mont. Orn. Diet. 



M^sange bleue. Parus coeruleus. Temm. Man. d'Orn. I. 289. 



Blue Titmouse. Parus coeruleus. Selb. lUustr. I. 235. 



Parus coeruleus. Blue Titmouse. Jen. Brit. Vert. An. 122. 



Upper part of the head light blue encircled with white, a hand 

 round the neck, and the spaces before and behind the eye of a 

 duller blue, the cheeks white, the back light yellowish-green, the 

 lower parts pale greyish-yellow, the middle of the breast dull blue. 



Male. — The Blue Tit is the most familiar, perhaps the most 

 lively species of the genus, and by many is considered as the 

 most beautiful. It is of a remarkably short and compact form, 

 its head large and rounded, its bill very short, strong, com- 

 pressed, both its outlines convex, the ridge blunt, the sides 

 convex, the edges of the lower mandible a little inflected, the 

 tips rather obtuse. Both mandibles are concave within, the 

 upper with a central prominent line, which is grooved at the 

 base, two lateral ridges, and four grooves, the lower also with 

 a central prominent line. The oesophagus, PI. XIII. Fig. 9, 



