1 628 THE PERCHING BIRDS 



this tit lays from ten to fourteen white eggs, spotted with red; the young being 

 sometimes hatched as early as the month of April. Both the old birds participate 

 in the labors of incubation, and we have known the young of this species reared 

 from the nest by hand. Indeed, long-tailed tits have been kept in confinement for 

 no less a period than two years. The method of treatment was to confine these 

 birds between large double windows where ivy was growing, on the leaves of which 

 numbers of plant lice were found, and upon these the freshly-caught tits fed, and by 

 degrees got accustomed to confinement, and would take ants' eggs and other food. 

 About a dozen species of the genus are now known, the most recently discovered 

 being the Macedonian long- tailed tit. Possessing a black chin, this tit otherwise 

 resembles the British long-tailed tit with black instead of white lores. Irby's long- 

 tailed tit inhabits Spain and Italy, while the Turkish long-tailed tit resembles the last 

 named in having the centre of the back gray and not black, but differs in the presence 

 of a large blackish patch on the centre of the throat. A sixth species inhabits the 

 northern slopes of the Caucasus, and has the forehead pale brownish, and the sides of 

 the crown brown instead of black. The adult has the whole of the head snowy white, 

 the hind part of the neck deep black, the sides of the back and scapulars vinous red, 

 the wings and tail black and white, and the under parts whitish tinged with pink. 

 The single representative of this genus, Panurus, possesses a short, 

 e *' subconical bill; the wing has the first primary very minute, the tail is 



long and graduated, the metatarsus is also long, and the feet are com- 

 paratively stout; but the distinctive characteristic is the elongation of the feathers of 

 the sides of the throat into a mustache. The bearded tit (P. biarmicus} is peculiar 

 to Central and North Europe in its typical form, being replaced in Central Asia by a 

 paler variety. Throughout its range it haunts large reed beds and marshes. Nor- 

 folk was formerly its home, and a few pairs still breed in some of the more favored 

 parts of the broads; Mr. Stevenson writing that " when shooting at Surlingham, in 

 the winter months, I have more than once observed the arrival of a flock from some 

 neighboring broad, their presence overhead being indicated by the clear ringing of 

 their silvery notes uttered preparatory to their pitching into the nearest reed bed; 

 and in autumn, after roosting in small parties on the reeds, they will fly up simulta- 

 neously soon after sunrise, swarming for a while like a flock of bees, and uttering in 

 full chorus their pretty song, disperse themselves over the reed beds for their morn- 

 ing meal. Delicate as these little creatures appear, I have found them during the 

 sharpest frosts, when the snipe had left the half-frozen waters for upland springs 

 and drains, still busy among the reed stems as lively and musical as ever." The 

 writer also says that he has often found the nests completed by the end of the 

 first week of April. These are generally placed among the reed stems close to 

 the edge of the water, supported on the loose herbage forming the foundation of 

 the reed beds, but never in any way suspended; they are constructed of the 

 dead stems of sedges and reeds intermixed with a few pieces of grass, and inva- 

 riably lined with the tops of reeds. The eggs are pure white, sprinkled all over 

 with small purplish-red spots. The food of these tits during the winter is princi- 

 pally the seed of the reed, and so intent are they in searching for it that they have 

 been taken with a bird-limed twig attached to the end of a fishing rod. When. 



