i5 BRITISH BIRDS. WITH THEIR NESTS AND EGGS. 



Russia it has not yet been obtained further north than lat. 6i." Seebohm. 



Pretty generally distributed in Great Britain, but rare and local in the north- 

 west of Scotland, not recorded from the Hebrides, and in the Orkneys and Shetlands 

 only a chance visitor. 



The Blue-Tit is one of the most beautiful of our small birds ; it has the crown 

 of the head smalt-bhie, completely encircled by a white stripe, commencing on the 

 forehead, passing over each eye, and into a bracket-shaped line across the back of 

 the head ; behind the latter, at back of head, is a belt of indigo which widens at 

 the sides of the neck and divides, its upper ramus passing through the eye to the 

 base of the bill and the lower forming a belt round the sides of the neck, and 

 uniting with a triangular black patch which occupies the throat and chin ; cheeks 

 and ear coverts white ; nape bluish-ash, whitish in the centre, remainder of body 

 above yellowish- green ; wings and tail blue, the greater wing coverts tipped with 

 white ; breast and abdomen sulphur-yellow, with a more or less defined central 

 longitudinal black stripe; nights and tail-feathers below ash-grey; bill smoky, paler 

 at junction of mandibular edges ; feet deep bluish-leaden, inclining to black ; iris 

 dark brown. The female is altogether somewhat duller than the male, the cheeks 

 slightly ashy and the under parts suffused with olive-greenish. The young are 

 still duller, the blue being less pronounced, and the plumage generally more 

 yellow. 



Most observant people are familiar with the Blue-Tit, or Tom-Tit as it is 

 frequently called ; yet I have had it described to me as "a foreign bird, evidently 

 escaped from some aviary," which shows that even in this enlightened age, there 

 are individuals whose eyes are closed to the beauties which abound on every side 

 of them. In its habits this species does not greatly differ from its congeners : 

 wherever trees are it may be seen in more or less abundance, whether in forest, 

 plantation, orchard, shrubbery, garden, or hedgerow, and everywhere its various 

 calls may be heard as it searches the twigs and branches for food or amuses itself 

 in stripping off buds and leaves. Suddenly one of these mites leaves a tree and 

 with undulating flight crosses the open to some new field of operations, and 

 immediately all the Tits in that tree are after him in a wavering stream anxious 

 to see what he is about. 



The love-song of the Blue-Tit is not at all like its call-notes : I carefully took 

 it down, and went over it note by note, as a bird in the next garden repeated it : 

 this song was Tee-tit-tit-twee, tee-te-twee, tee-te-lwee ; I have also heard it sing JJ'ce, 

 wee, wee, tit-tit-titta :* the call-note however is tsee, tsee, tsee, and the call of the young 



* One of the commonest songs of the Blue-Tit consists of two or three shrill notes, followed by a descend- 

 ing trill. 



