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THE COAL-TITMOUSE. 



Parus ater, Linnreus. 



In the Coal-Titmouse, as in the Long-tailed Titmouse, there are 

 successive variations, the extremes of which become, in the opinion 

 of some ornithologists, entitled to specific distinction. x\s Parus 

 britannicus, Messrs. Sharpe and Dresser have separated our race from 

 that of the Continent, because the upper back is olive-brown in the 

 British bird, and slate-grey in the Continental form ; but, while I 

 admit that a difference in tint is often recognizable, there are inter- 

 gradations, especially noticeable in specimens from the old pine- 

 forests of Scotland. Examples from Norfolk, indistinguishable from 

 those of the Continent, may, of course, be of foreign parentage ; 

 and so may specimens in the British Museum, from Perthshire, 

 which are identical with birds from the Vosges, although less purely 

 grey than those from Japan. Against the migration-hypothesis 

 must be set the experience of Mr. Gurney, jun., and Mr. Booth, who 

 never observed the Coal-Tit at sea off the east coast, nor received a 

 wing of it out of thousands sent from the light-ships ; as well as the 

 fact that it seldom visits Heligoland. I have therefore treated these 



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