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CRESTED TIT. 
CRESTED TITMOUSE. 
Parus cristatus, PENNANT. MonrtTaau. 
PUTUS neon vcacsace ? Cristatus—Crested. 
‘Ir any of my readers,’ says Macgillivray, ‘should be anxious 
to know how an author may contrive to talk a great deal 
about nothing, he may consult the article, ‘Crested Tit,’ 
an amusing work entitled “fhe Feathered Tribes of the British 
Islands.’” I have only hereon to remark that Mr. Macgillivray 
is very seldom wrong, and this is not one of the few instances 
in which he is. Mudie certainly disproved the truth of the 
proverb ‘ex nihilo nihil fit, for though his stock of knowledge 
of any bird might be nil, that had nothing whatever to do 
with the ‘quantum’ he wrote about it; and thus he made 
his book. 
The Crested Titmouse is an European bird, being found in 
plenty in Denmark, Russia, Sweden, Norway, Germany, 
France, Switzerland, and Poland. 
In our own country it occurs more sparingly, is of very 
local distribution, and appears to be confined to the northern 
districts of one island, where, in the extensive pine forests, 
its shy habits and the secluded character of its chosen habitat, 
render its discovery a matter of rarer occurrence, than under 
other circumstances would probably be the case. 
In Yorkshire, one is stated by Mr. Allis, on the authority 
of Mr. J. Heppenstall, to have been seen in a garden at Thorne, 
in the West Riding. In the county of Durham, one was 
shot on Sunderland Moor, in the middle of January, 1850. 
About the year 1789, a considerable flock was observed in 
Scotland, as also in various parts there in the autumn of 
1848; i other seasons they have been met with, but not so 
