520 



PERCHING BIRDS 



protection stopped the practice, the pending extermination of the 

 species was largely aided by this traffic. 



Blue Titmouse 



The blue titmouse is the most familiar, although 

 ;Parus cteruleus). "°* ^^^ typical, representative of the large family of 

 titmice, or " tits " (Paridre), whose range includes 

 the greater part of the world with the exception of South and Central 

 America and Australasia. From the fact that the nostrils are hidden 



by feathers, coupled with the 

 presence of transverse shield- 

 like scales on the front of the 

 shank of the leg, and the 

 circumstance that the plum- 

 age of the young is like that 

 of the adults, only paler, it 

 has been proposed to brigade 

 the titmice with the crows in 

 a single family ; but this is 

 a case of putting too much 

 reliance on a few characters. 

 Titmice are all comparatively 

 small birds, with bright- 

 coloured plumage, in which 

 olive or yellow (or both to- 

 gether) is often conspicuous, 

 ■""v. / \ \ J\ ^^s.Y^ short, conical, unnotched 



\ I 1%. «^k^ '\ ^\ beaks, a number of short 



bristles at the gape, and 

 feeble rounded wings. In the 

 typical genus, as represented by the blue and the great titmouse, the 

 head is without a crest, and the tail short and rounded. 



In the blue titmouse, which measures 4 J, inches in length, 

 the crown of the head is cobalt-blue, girdled with a band of silvery 

 white, below which is a narrow dark blue strii)c extending from 

 the base of the beak to the eye, and thence backwards to join a 

 broad circular band running upwards to the nape and downwards 

 below the side of the head and so on to the beak, thus enclosing an 

 oval white patch ; the back of the neck is silvery white tinged with 

 blue ; the back dull green shot with blue ; the wing-coverts, of which 

 the greater have white tips, are ultramarine ; the wing-quills have 

 cobalt outer webs and white tips to those of the secondary series ; 



BI.UK TITMOUSK. 



