476 BRITISH BIRDS. 
PARUS PALUSTRIS. 
MARSH-TIT. 
(PLATE 9.) 
Parus palustris, Briss, Orn. iii. p. 555 (1760) ; Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 8341 (1766); et 
auctorum plurimorum—Latham, Gmelin, Bechstein, Temminck, Naumann, 
Gray, (Bonaparte), Newton, Dresser, &c. 
Peecile palustris (Linn.), Kaup, Natiirl. Syst. p. 114 (1829). 
Peecile communis, Degl. et Gerbe, Orn. Eur. i. p. 567 (1867, ex Baldenstein). 
The Marsh-Tit inhabits the whole of Europe, Asia Minor, Turkestan, 
Siberia south of the Arctic circle, and North China, but is apparently 
absent from Persia, Afghanistan, and Mongolia. The difference of climate 
in such an extensive range has given rise to variations in size and in colour, 
which are said to be characteristic of varieties, subspecies, or species, 
according to the views of the writer. British examples are of a somewhat 
more sandy brown than those from the continent of Western Europe, but 
scarcely sufficiently so to warrant their separation. The variety of the 
Marsh-Tit which is generally accepted as the typical form of P. palustris 
is found throughout South-western Europe as far north and as far east 
as St. Petersburg. In this form the tail is nearly even and short, the 
upper parts are sandy brown, and the flanks are pale sandy brown. In 
Scandinavia, north of lat. 61° up to the Arctic circle and in North-west 
Russia, a form occurs having the tail rounded and slightly longer, the 
upper parts are slate-grey, and the flanks are only slightly suffused with 
brown: this form has been named P. borealis. In North-east Russia 
and West Siberia the birds have the tail still further increased in length, 
but the colour of the plumage does not exhibit any perceptible change: 
to this form the name of P. dbaicalensis has been applied. In birds still 
further to the east, in East Siberia and in the neighbourhood of Lake 
Baikal, the tail again becomes nearly even and appears to reach its greatest 
length, the bill is much smaller, and the slate-grey upper parts are slightly 
suffused with brown: to these birds 'aczanowski has given the name of 
_ P. brevirostris ; and he assures me that the difference between the two 
forms is well known to the bird-fanciers of Irkutsk, where they both occur. 
The long-tailed, short-billed form is said to be useless as a cage-bird, not 
possessing the powers of song which distinguish the other. In Kamt- 
schatka a race, to which Bonaparte gave the name of P. kamtschatkensis *, 
* The P. kamtschatkensis described by Dresser in his ‘ Birds of Europe’ is nothing but 
the Siberian form of P. borealis (P. baicalensis). The true P. kamtschatkensis has lately 
been rediscovered by Dybowsky. 
