540 PASSERIFORMES 



the same with the Ethiopian Eegion, FsaltrijKtrus and Auriparm 

 to North America, Xeroiihila and Sphenostoma to Australia, 

 Certhiparus to New Zealand. 



These familiar birds, active and often noisy, are fonnd in flat or 

 hilly, open or wooded districts, up to an altitude of ten thousand 

 feet or more. They are decidedly arboreal, seldom frequenting the 

 ground, and usually combining into flocks, except when breeding. 

 The food consists mainly of insects, their eggs, larvae, and pupae, 

 but at times of conifer-seeds, acorns, beech-mast, nuts, and the 

 like ; while in winter a suspended meat-bone, fat, or crumbs, 

 prove great attractions. No doubt a certain amount of fruit is 

 eaten in summer, and buds are plucked in spring ; but the latter 

 commonly contain injurious grubs. The Great Tit will kill 

 smaller birds. The flight is weak and undulating, but on the 

 trees the birds hop, climb, cling head downwards, and pry into the 

 crannies in most workman-like style. Xerophila is, however, more 

 terrestrial. The sharp reiterated notes are varied by sibilant 

 sounds, those of the Blue Tit being fairly representative ; yet 

 some are harsher; others, as in the Long-tailed Tits, softer; while 

 certain Crested Tits are credited with a song. The nest is nor- 

 mally a mass of moss — and sometimes grass — with a felted lining 

 of wool, hair, or fur, containing from five or six to twelve or more 

 white eggs, which are in most cases spotted or freckled with various 

 shades of red, but rarely with purplish or chocolate -colour. Some- 

 times more than one is laid in a day. The fabric is placed in holes 

 in trees, stumps, rocks, walls, or the ground ; pumps, post- 

 boxes, and so forth are frequently selected : nooks behind 

 loose bark, deserted habitations of other birds, or the foundations 

 of those of Hawks and Crows are sometimes chosen ; while Spheno- 

 stoma, and occasionally Xerophila, build open nests in shrubs. 

 Acredula, Aegithalus, and Fsaltriparus make a purse-shaped struc- 

 ture with an entrance near the top ; the first-named, thence called 

 Bottle-Tit, placing it in hedges, bushes, undergrowth, forks of trees, 

 or even ivy, and using as materials, moss, wool, lichens, and 

 cobwebs, with a thick feather-lining ; the two latter generally 

 suspend it to branches and fashion it of grass, fibres, and leaves, 

 often adding twigs externally or down internally. Aegithalus 

 occasionally makes a tubular passage. Auriparus deposits in a 

 similar or bulkier nest pale bluish or greenish eggs with red-brown 

 specks, while those of Sphenostoina are blue with blackish mark- 



