474, BRITISH BIRDS. 
near houses. Its favourite haunts are the plantations and the copses near 
the moorlands ; and it is often seen in little parties in furze-brakes and 
tangled thickets near streams. Perhaps the best place to study the habits 
of the Coal Tit is in the birch-copses late in autumn, when the foliage is 
thin and the birds readily seen, At this season they are in small parties 
(broods of the year probably and their parents), and are usually accom- 
panied by a few Blue Tits, a Great Tit or two, and possibly a Creeper. 
Their call-note, something like if-hee, if-hee, if-hee, will probably arrest 
the attention long before the birds themselves are visible. Their actions 
are precisely the same as those of the other Tits: the same grotesque 
attitudes are assumed; each twig is explored in the same business-like way 
as with their congeners. Sometimes the Coal Tit visits the ground in 
search of food; and it may often be seen clinging to walls and posts, 
searching the crannies, the moss, and the lichens for insects. 
Dixon thus writes of the Coal Tit :—“ Perhaps their actions, though some- 
what resembling those of the Titmice in general, are more rapid than those of 
other members of the family. You sometimes see them dart through the 
foliage with great rapidity, chasing each other apparently in sportive glee. 
There is scarcely a tree or a bush that the Coal Tit does not visit. Now 
hanging from the long pendent branches of the graceful birch, now searching ~ 
the thorny sprays of the hawthorn, now on the topmost branches of the oak 
or ash, then onwards to the drooping elm; now on the lowly twigs of the 
hazel or elder-bushes ; then the evergreens in turn are visited; and even 
the ivy on the ground is frequently explored. A favourite place to meet 
with the Coal Tit is on the spreading branches of the fir tree, notably 
those which are studded with cones. There you see him dexterously 
ejecting the tiny seeds from their scaly bed, the bird very often clinging 
to the cone, it may be on the extremity of a slender twig, and its active 
motions causing the branch and its living burden to sway backwards and 
forwards like the steady beat of a pendulum. A merry little party of 
wanderers they are, and busy themselves with their own affairs alone. 
When the sun nears the western horizon the Coal Tits, if it be winter time, 
repair to the verdant branches of the evergreen to roost, or sometimes seek 
shelter in the warm side of a haystack, always seeking that side opposite 
to the direction in which the wind is blowing. I have also often witnessed 
the migration of this charming little bird in the mellow days of October. 
It comes with the Goldcrests, and with them departs ; for in this neigh- 
bourhood (Rivelin valley) the bird is only represented in the winter 
months by the few pairs that breed in the woods in this wild romantic 
place. I have seen them in scores in the birch-woods here, tarrying for 
a week perhaps, and then disappearing as suddenly as they had arrived.” 
The food of the Coal Tit is largely composed of insects ; but this bird is 
also to no small extent a seed-eater. Mr. Tegetmeier gives an instance in 
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