296 Mr. R. B. Sharpe on the Genus Acredula. 



Museum at Newcastle-on-Tyne, specimens of a Bottle-Titmouse 

 with a white head ; and the author suggests the possibility of 

 the coutiuental being specifically distinct from the British bird. 

 Further research showed me that a similar belief had been ex- 

 pressed by other ornithologists*; and it was therefore with 

 renewed confidence that I set to work to examine all the 

 material at my command. The great difficulty I have experi- 

 enced in procuring continental specimens with the sexes marked 

 so that I could rely upon them, must be my excuse for the im- 

 perfections of the present essay ; but I have endeavoured to in- 

 dicate all points on which I am not perfectly clear, and I hope 

 that ornithologists, now that the subject has been pointed out 

 to them, will do their best to enlighten us with respect to the 

 exact geographical distribution of the two species, as I hope 

 to convince my readers these birds are. 



I am sure that no ornithologist, comparing carefully the plate 

 of Parus caudatus in Mr. Gould's ' Birds of Europe ' with any 

 coloured figure of the bird under the same name in the works of 

 German or Scandinavian authors would consider that they re- 

 presented the same species ; for the male of the Scandinavian 

 bird is always figured with a white head, while the male of the 

 British species has a band on each side of the head extending 

 from the eye to the nape, the female only of the former having 

 a dusky band on each side of the head, as in both sexes of the 

 English bird. This, then, is the principal point on which I 

 ground my proposition that they ought to be recognized as 

 specifically distinct, viz. that the sexes of the British bird are 

 alike, while in the Scandinavian Bottle-Titmouse they differ 

 considerably one from the other. Nor is my conviction founded 

 on figures in any work alone ; for I have lying before me speci- 

 mens from Great Britain, Denmark, Holland, and Germany; 

 and I propose now to consider the geographical distribution of 

 of the two species, so far as the material I have at hand will 

 allow me ; and it will be seen that all I have to add is in favour 

 of their specific separation. 



For the loan of the Danish birds I am indebted to the Rev. 

 H. B. Tristram, who has always most kindly lent me specimens 

 * Ibis, 18G2, p. l»2 ; 18G3, p. 189. 



