RUDDY-BREASTED BIRDS. 99 



holly and furze bushes, and sometimes higher in 

 lichen and ivy clad trees. 



Distribution. — General throughout England and 

 Wales ; less common in Scotland ; common in Ireland. 



The Long-Tailed Tit is resident in and generally 

 distributed throughout the British Islands, being 

 commoner, however, in England, and rare in the 

 north of Scotland. Black, white, and pink are its 

 peculiar colours, and when it is stated that the 

 tail is longer than the body, it will be recognised 

 that this species is sufficiently easy to identify. In 

 fact, it is as tiny a bird as any in our islands save 

 for its inordinately long tail. Building a remarkable 

 moss nest, egg-shaped, with a circular opening at one 

 side near the top, the bird places it, usually not high, 

 in a thorn-hedge, a bush, or tree, as a rule in or near 

 a wood or copse. Here the birds move much in 

 the higher branches, using all the topsy-turvy antics 

 that characterise the Tit tribe generally, but being 

 sufficiently distinguished by their long tails and the 

 necessity they are under, owing to the extreme short- 

 ness of their bills, of applying them closely to the 

 bark from the crevices of which they extract the 

 insect-food upon which they subsist. But they are 

 more readily observable in winter when, in small 

 parties consisting of birds of their own species, or 

 in the company of Goldcrests or of some of the 

 Tits, they canvass the garden trees and shrubs, their 

 vibrant ' Zee ! zee ! ' being sounded whenever a bird 

 passes from one tree to another. As it does so the 

 white of the outer tail-feathers is particularly con- 

 spicuous, The only other common British birds 



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