BLUE TIT. 209 
streak is indistinctly defined, being dull light bluish grey: 
over the eye a dull yellow streak running round the head. 
Forehead, dull yellow; sides of the head the same; crown, 
dull light bluish grey; the ring on the neck the same; throat, 
dull yellow. The streak down the breast also obseure in the 
young male, and wanting in the female: the breast itself dull 
yellow, tinged with grey on the sides, and lower down; back, 
light green, with a grey tinge. Greater wing coverts, greyish 
blue, tipped with yellow; lesser wing coverts, greyish blue; 
primaries, greyish blue, edged narrowly with greyish white; 
secondaries, the same, edged broadly with light green, and 
tipped with yellowish white; tertiaries, greyish blue. Toes, 
dull bluish grey; claws, light yellowish brown. 
At the first moult in August the bill is dark horn-colour, 
edged with white; the sides of the head and the mark round 
the crown are yellow, mottled with white; the crown greenish, 
interspersed with the coming blue feathers, and the dark 
streak through the eye and collar dusky. There is a very 
great and striking dissimilarity in the sizes of different indi- 
viduals of this species, so much so as almost to make one 
fancy that they might prove two species, and not one. 
Individuals vary also in brightness of colouring; and at the 
time of moulting, in the autumn, they often become of a 
curious dull and dingy colour, as if in very ill health. 
A white variety of this bird was observed at Northrepps, 
in the county of Norfolk, in the year 1848; and another is 
recorded by the Revs. Andrew and Henry Matthews, in their 
‘Catalogue of the Birds of Oxfordshire and its neighbourhood,’ 
published in the ‘Zoologist,’ ‘mm which all the feathers of the 
wing were more or less marked with large brown spots.’ 
VOL. I. P 
