2 5 o WILD LIFE OF SCOTLAND 



not quite, all female, with perhaps a male in each 

 score. Half a dozen males are feeding by them- 

 selves on the road, and evidently leading a sort of 

 winter bachelor life. Thus, although there is by 

 no means so absolute a separation of the sexes as 

 to justify the specific name of " Coelebs," there is 

 the distinct tendency on the part of, probably, a 

 majority of the males, to live, more or less, apart. 

 I find that, as a rule, it is safe to assume some basis 

 of fact in what old observers tell us. 



Feeding; along with the chaffinches are two blue 



o o 



tits. These bright little fellows press^their tails on 

 the ground, when they have a tough morsel to deal 

 with, a habit doubtless acquired in their homes up 

 in the fir-trees. In the odd position they have to 

 adopt in order to reach their insect food, sometimes 

 upside down under a twig, they doubtless find the 

 tail a convenient aid to the bill. But they are 

 not such masters of the art as the brown-backed 

 creeper circling round that elm trunk, nor has their 

 tail been modified into so apt an instrument. 



A song-thrush pops over the wall, and lights on 

 a fallow field. There is no mistaking him. He is 

 too large for the redwing, too small for the missel- 

 thrush, too brown or yellow for the fieldfare. 

 Colonel Drummond Hay reports that this bird 



