Manchester Memoirs, Vol. Iviii. (^1914), No. IJ. 5 



It was a bird which had been killed in Hainpstead, and 

 was marked on the label " Type of Birds of Europe." 

 Dr. Tattersall submitted it, together with one which we 

 were agreed was a Marsh Tit, to Ur. Hartert. He replied 

 confirming our identification. 



" Undoubtedly a Willow Tit ; it is, however, not an 

 adult, but a bird of the year. It is doubtless the specimen 

 from which Fig. 2 {Plate 109 of Dresser's " Birds") has been 

 taken, though Mr. Dresser at the time does not seem to 

 have noticed that it is a young bird. The other specimen 

 is, of course, a Marsh Tit and not a Willow Tit." 



Unfortunately, the artist also seems to have ignored 

 the brown-black of the head, for the specimen figured is 

 painted with a glossy head like the others on the same 

 plate, 



On April 17th, 191 2, my attention was arrested by 

 the brown-black head of a Tit, one of a couple which I 

 saw in a wood near Rostherne ; I was satisfied that I had 

 at last identified the bird in Cheshire. On the following 

 day, by a curious coincidence, Mr. A. W. Boyd saw a pair 

 of birds, which he was equally sure were Willow Tits, in 

 Boggart-Hole Clough, Manchester. We recorded the 

 birds in the same number of " British Birds." " Mr. Boyd 

 mentions a fact, which has been noticed by others, and 

 with which I heartil}' agree, that the Willow Tit looks 

 "altogether duller" than the I\Iarsh Tit. It is worth 

 mentioning that a few da\s later I found a Marsh Tit 

 nesting in an adjoining wood to the one in which I saw 

 my birds. 



Just a year later, on April 15th, 1913, I noticed that 

 a pair of Willow Tits were engaged in excavating a 

 nesting hole in an old white willow in a wood not far 

 from Bowdon. Throughout the season I watched these 



' ' " British Birds,'" v., 328, 329. 



