1 92 Summer Studies of Birds and Books CHAP. 



Among other small birds we recognise the Titmice 

 (avy[6a\oi), of which he says there are three kinds : 

 one as large as a finch, which is no doubt the Great 

 Tit ; one called the Hill Tit, with a long tail, which 

 marks him as a familiar friend of ours ; and one 

 other, a small one, which may be our Marsh Tit, or, 

 as some have thought, the Sombre Tit (Pariis 

 lugubris), a bird now common in Greece, but never 

 found in our islands. 1 Aristotle duly notes the large 

 number of eggs laid by these birds, a fact which is 

 more especially true of the Long -tailed Tit. 2 He 

 also tells that they are enemies to the bees ; 3 and 

 it is a well-known fact that our Blue Tit will 

 sometimes take a fancy to station itself close to 

 a hive and work havoc on the bees as they fly in 

 and out. 



About the Wagtails, though they are obvious and 

 striking birds, he is not very clear, and we cannot 

 be at all certain under what name he refers to them. 

 In one passage he mentions a number of birds which 

 live by water and move their tails, but that does not 

 carry us very far. 4 Only in one case do we seem to 

 recognise a Wagtail with any certainty, and that is 

 in the description of a bird called Anthus a name 



1 H. A. viii. 3. 4. 



2 2b. ix. 16. He mentions seventeen and even more than 

 twenty eggs as having been laid by one species, the "Black- 

 headed Tit," by an error perhaps for the Long-tail. 



3 Ib. ix. 40. 37. 4 Ib. viii. 3. 13. 



