PARID.E. 



^05 



THE COAL-TITMOUSE. 



Parus ater, Linnffius. 



In the Coal-Titmouse, as in the Long-tailed Titmouse, there are 

 gradual variations, the extremes of which become, in the opinion 

 of some ornithologists, entitled to specific distinction. As Parus 

 britaiinicits, Messrs. Sharpe and Dresser have separated our race 

 from that of the Continent, because the upper back is olive-brown 

 in the PJritish bird, and slate-grey in the Continental form ; but, 

 while I admit that a difference in tint is often recognizable, there are 

 intergradations, and these are even noticeable in specimens from 

 some of the forests of Scotland, in which the bird is abundant. 

 Examples from Norfolk- — indistinguishable from those of the Conti- 

 nent — may, of course, be foreign immigrants ; and so may the 

 specimens in the British Museum, from Perthshire, which are identical 

 with birds from the Vosges, although less purely grey than those 

 from Japan. Against the migration-hypothesis must, however, be 

 set the experience of Mr. Gurney and the late Mr. Booth, who never 

 observed the Coal-Tit at sea off the east coast, nor received a wing 

 of it out of numbers sent from the light-ships, as well as the fact 



