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CRESTED TIT. 483 
distinguishing feature of the Arcachon winters the white edges to the black 
feathers of the head of the Crested Tit are generally very conspicuous 
during flight ; and often enough when the little bird is hanging under a 
branch of a lofty pine, the outline of its erected crest is easy to see against 
the sky. But the surest way of detecting its presence is to listen for its 
note. Its call-note is a not very loud si, si, si, which seems to be common 
to many of the Tits; but this is often followed by a spluttering note diffi- 
cult to express on paper, which, as far as I know, is peculiar to the Crested 
Tit. It is a lame attempt at a trill, a sort of ptur, re, re, re, ree. The pine 
trees in the Arcachon forest are tapped for their resin. Three or four 
longitudinal scores are made on the trunks; and these are lengthened as 
they dry up until they reach a considerable height from the ground. When 
the tree gets old the weather rots the part where the bark has been re- 
moved, and the trunk swells out and cracks, and all kinds of convenient 
nooks and crannies are formed, where Tits and other birds who like such 
situations for their nests can breed. Some of these trees in the old forest 
of La Teste attain a diameter of four, and even five feet; and occasionally 
one comes across a fine old oak. The Crested Tits seem, however, to prefer 
the pines; and although the Great and the Coal Tits are very fond of 
searching for insects on the ground amongst the fallen oak-leaves, I have 
never seen the Crested Tit on the ground. In the pine-forosts of Pome- 
rania and of the Alps I found this bird equally common. 
In Scotland the haunt of the Crested Tit is the pine-woods, and more 
rarely the birch-plantations. The breeding-season of the bird, both in 
Scotland and in Pomerania, commences about the middle of April; and the 
eggs are laid by the first week in May. Russow says that in the Russian _ 
Baltic Provinces it often has a second brood early in June. 
The Crested Tit generally builds its nest in a hole in a tree, and usually 
at no very great height from the ground; but in forests where there are 
not many old trees, and suitable holes are not easily found, it will often 
construct its nest in the foundations of large nests (those of birds of prey, 
Crows, &c.), or it lays its eggs in the forsaken nests of the Magpie, 
the Crow, or the Squirrel, or even of the Wren. More than one orni- 
thologist has maintained that it builds a nest of its own with a hole in the 
side, like that of the Wren. It has been known to breed in the little 
wooden boxes which the Germans are so fond of putting up for the accom- 
modation of their favourites the Starlings ; and it is said often to hollow 
out a hole for itself in decayed trees and old half-rotten pallisades, 
The nest is put together in a somewhat slovenly fashion, and made of 
dry grass, moss, wool, feathers, and very often the fur of the “ blue hare” 
thickly felted together. The eggs of the Crested Tit are from four to six 
or seven in number, and differ considerably in the amount and distribution 
of the markings. They are pure white in ground-colour, some specimens 
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