206 THE TITS 



But we are only too glad to hear their voices on those dull winter 

 days : 



" When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang 

 Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, 

 Bare ruin'd quires, where late the sweet birds sang." 



The deserted aisles in Nature's vast pine-wood cathedrals are 

 not so bare, nor yet so desolate, as they would be if there were no 

 courageous, light-hearted Tits, with their associates, to enliven them 

 with merry call-notes and graceful aerial performances. 



BRITISH WILLOW-TIT 

 [E. L. TURNER] 



Recent ornithologists have added another species to the four 

 already described namely, the British willow-tit. Hitherto this bird 

 has been confounded with the marsh-tit, from which in general 

 appearance it differs but slightly. Since its discovery as a British 

 bird, by Pastor Kleinschmidt and Dr. Ernst Hartert in 1897, very 

 little information has been forthcoming concerning the habits of 

 the willow-tit 1 For what I have been able to gather I am 

 mainly indebted to Messrs. C. J. and H. G. Alexander. The latter 

 tells me that "Willow-tits consort rather less than marsh-tits with 

 large parties of other species of Tits ; but may often be seen with 

 marsh-tits only, or in smaller parties by themselves. Their habitat is 

 slightly different, for they prefer less scrubby places, showing rather 

 more aristocratic tastes in the choice of suitable haunts than do 

 marsh-tits ; also they have a wider range. The proportion in which 

 willow-tits may be found in the neighbourhood of Tunbridge Wells, 

 compared with marsh-tits, is quite one in four. There is a distinct 

 tone about the willow-tit's notes which, when once really learned, ought 



1 British Birds, July 1007, p. 47. 



