540 PASSERIFORMES CHAP. 
the same with the Ethiopian Region, Psaltriparus and Auriparus 
to North America, Xerophila and Sphenostoma to Australia, 
Certhiparus to New Zealand. 
These familiar birds, active and often noisy, are found 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 all 
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-lke style. Lerophila 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 ina 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 im shrubs. 
Acredula, Aegithalus, and Psaltriparus 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. Awriparus deposits in a 
similar or bulkier nest pale bluish or greenish eggs with red-brown 
specks, while those of Sphenostoma are blue with blackish mark- 
