LONG-TAILED MUFFLIN. 457 



Coai Tit. Ill winter, and the early part of spring, it is chiefly 

 on tall trees that it is met with ; but at other seasons it fre- 

 quents thickets of low bushes, as well as woods, and now 

 and then travels ov^er the fields, settling here and there on the 

 grasses and other herbaceous plants. 



My friend Mr Hepburn thus describes its habits : — " The 

 Long-tailed Tit, which is common in our plantations and tall 

 hedge-rows, is even more restless than the Blue Tit. From 

 the first streak of day until sunset you may see them in troops 

 searching the branches of the tall hedge, or following each 

 other in a stream through the woods, uttering a harsh note 

 resembling chur-chu)\ and a shrill one very like ticlt-tioit. In 

 the end of February (1839), one morning before the sun was 

 risen, I reached their haunts. They were sporting in a hedge 

 which bounds a plantation, and, although the cold was intense, 

 exhibited their usual alacrity and animation. Just as the sun 

 rose above the snow-clad Lammermoors, four or five of them 

 left the hedge, and perched on some stems of hemlock, which 

 had been cut down last autumn, within three inches of the 

 ground. They even spread over the barley stubble, and set- 

 tling on it diligently examined it till they were left behind by 

 their companions, when away they jerked to join them, but 

 still alighted every now and then on the stubble and hemlocks. 

 The young birds, which are fledged about the end of June, 

 follow their parents till the end of spring ; but they are such 

 social birds that I have seen the males feeding in company, 

 when the females were sitting." 



About the beginning of April, the flocks break up, and 

 towards the end of that month the important business of the 

 season commences. The nest is not placed in a hole, like that 

 of many of the Tits, American as well as European, but is sup- 

 ported by the twigs or branches of a tree or bush, sometimes at 

 the height of many yards, but not unfrequently very near the 

 ground. Being of singular beauty, it has often been well de- 

 scribed ; but various writers, apparently not knowing how to 

 dispose of the long tail of the bird, have imagined it to have two 

 holes, one for the protrusion of that appendage. This account, 

 which I am authorized by observation to say is incorrect, may 



