Perching Birds. 43 



separate race of our ordinary Marsh Tit, and Mr. Hartert (Bull. Brit. Orn. Club, vii., 

 p. iv.l, gives the differences as follows : — The crown is less glossy and more of a 

 brownish black, the flanks are strongly marked with rufous, and the proportions of 

 the bill, wings and tail are slightly different. The call-note also is not the same, 

 and its habitat is confined to dark, shadow^■ and swampy places. The same form 

 is said by Mr. Kleinschmidt, who first drew Mr. Hartert's attention to the occurrence 

 of P. salicarius in England, to be found in German}'. 



The Crested Tn [Lophophanes cj-istatiis). Members of the genus Lo/'/io/Adw^i 

 are distinguished bv their pointed crest, which forms an evident tuit. The genus is 

 more strongly represented in the New World than in the Old, but there are a few 

 species in the Himalaya Mountains. Otherwise the Crested Tit of Great Britain 

 is the characteristic Palaarctic representative of the genus, and is found over the 

 greater part of Western Europe, wherever pine-forests occur, extending east to the 

 Volga, but not occurring in Greece or Italy below the line of the Alps. 



The species is distinguished b}' its sober olive-brown colour, white iace, black 

 throat joining the black of the nape, and long crest of black, white-edged feathers, 

 the crown itself being black. It is at the present time only found within a certain 

 limited area in Scotland, but has occurred in many of the English counties and in 

 Ireland. The Crested Tit seems to be everywhere a bird of the pine-forests, where 

 it searches for its insect food after the manner of a Creeper, and, according to Mr. 

 Seebohm, it never comes down to the ground, like other Tits sometimes do. The nest is 

 roughly made of dry grass and moss, and is placed in the hole of a tree or in the 

 foundations of Crow's, Magpie's, or even Squirrel's nests. The eggs are from four 

 to seven in number, white, with very distinct spots of red and purplish-red. 



The British Long-Tailed Tit {.Hgithalus vagans). The members of this 

 genus have a very long tail, which 

 exceeds the wing in length, thus difler- 

 ing from all the other British Paridii. 

 The nest of the Long-Tailed Tits, too, 

 is quite different from those of the 

 rest of the family, being a moss- 

 built, domed structure, placed in the 

 open, and not in the hole of a wall 

 or tree. 



Our Long-tailed Tit may almost be 

 considered a peculiar British species. 

 Like the Coal Tit, it is easily recog- 

 nisable from its Ci)ntinental repre- 

 sentative, as it has only the centre 



of the crown white, with a broad tmk WHixE-HEADiiD Lo.ng-Tailed Tit 



lateral stripe of black on each side of it. The Uritish Long-Tailed Tir 



