THE MARSH TIT 4t 
a patch of pure white on the nape of the neck and on the cheeks, 
while the head of the Marsh Tit is of a dull sooty black, without any 
admixture of white, nor is there a white spot on the cheeks. The 
Cole Tit is in many districts a common bird, inhabiting woods and 
hedgerows, and feeding on insects, for which it hunts with unceas- 
ing activity among the branches and twigs of trees. Its note is 
less varied than that of the Blue Tit, but sweeter in tone. It 
builds its nest in the holes of trees and walls, of moss, hair, and 
feathers, and lays six or seven eggs. 
THE MARSH TIT 
PARUS PALUSTRIS 
Forehead, crown, head, and nape black; upper parts grey ; wings dark grey, 
lighter at the edges ; cheeks, throat, and breast dull white. Dimensions 
and eggs as in the last. 
As has been said, the Marsh Tit and Cole Tit are so much alike 
that it requires a sharpeye to distinguish them at adistance. On 
a closer inspection, however, the characters mentioned in the 
preceding paragraph become apparent, and there can be no question 
that they are distinct species. The Marsh Tit is a bird of common 
occurrence, resident south of the Forth, being in some places less 
abundant, in others more so than the Cole Tit, while in others, 
again, the two are equally frequent. In those districts with which 
I am myself most familiar, it is hard to say which kind preponderates. 
Though it freely resorts to woods and plantations remote from 
water, it prefers, according to Montagu, low, wet ground, where 
old willow-trees abound, in the holes of which it often makes its 
nest. Its note, I have already observed, is very like that of the 
Cole Tit, being less harsh than that either of the Blue or Great 
Tit. The peculiar double note, which I know no other way of 
describing than by comparing it to the syllables ‘1f-he’, rapidly 
uttered, and repeated in imitation of a sob, characterizes, in a more 
or less marked degree, the spring song of all four. Another charac- 
teristic of the same species is, that all the members of a brood 
appear to keep much together for several months after they are 
fledged. At the approach of winter, they break up their societies, 
and are for the most part solitary till the return of spring. The Marsh 
Tit, like the Tom Tit, has been observed to enlarge the hole which it 
has selected for its nest, and to carry the chips in its bill toa dis- 
tance, and it is equally courageous in defence of its eggs and young. 
