TITMICE. 



Ill 



which is almost as minute as the golden-crowned wren :* but the 

 blue titmouse, or nun (parus cceruleusj, the cole-mouse (parus 



Blue Titmouse. 



Cole Titmouse. 



ater), the great black-headed titmouse (fringillago), and the 

 marsh titmouse (parus palustris), all resort, at times, to buildings ; 

 and in hard weather particularly. The great titmouse, driven by 

 stress of weather, much frequents houses, and, in deep snows, I 

 have seen this bird, while it hung with its back downwards (to 

 my no small delight and admiration), draw straws lengthwise 

 from out the eaves of thatched houses, in order to pull out the 

 flies that were concealed between them, and that in such numbers 

 that they quite defaced the thatch, and gave it a ragged appear- 

 ance. \ 



The blue titmouse or nun, is a great frequenter of houses, and 

 a general devourer. Besides insects, it is very fond of flesh ; 

 for it frequently picks bones on dunghills : it is a vast admirer 



* This curious little bird, which Dr. Leach first separated from the genus partis, proposing for 

 it the appellation mecistura, and which I would designate by the vernacular term " mufflin," by 

 which in some parts it is provincially known, naming 

 it the rose-mufflin (mecistura rosea), from its predomi- 

 nant tint, is very distinct in its characters from the 

 tits, with which it has been commonly associated, and 

 in fact I know of no species to which it is very closely 

 allied. In many parts of England it is called " bottle- 

 tit," and is well known for the beauty and exquisite 

 construction of its large doomed nest, which cannot be 

 sufficiently admired, and which itself is a character in 

 which it differs from the tr.ie pari, all of which nidifi- 

 cate in holes. The rose-mufflin is very common 



throughout the lowland districts of Britain, and feeds Rose Mufflin. 



exclusively on small insects, in their different stages, which it finds about the twigs and branches 

 of trees, the tits being, on the contrary, remarkably omnivorous in their diet, indeed more so 

 than any other small birds we have ; they are in fact miniatures of the jay and other corvine 

 genera, which they resemble even in the habit of hiding their superfluities of food, and in making 

 great use of the foot to hold what they are picking to pieces, being thus enabled to pierce holes 

 in the hard husks of seeds, by quickly repeated sharp knocks of the bill, through which they ex- 

 tract the kernel. The rose-mufflin, however, has not the least notion of thus using its foot; and 

 indeed the form of the foot, the make of the bill, its texture of plumage, and in short all its 

 characters are quite distinct from the genus pants. ED. 



t I have taken grains of wheat from the stomach of this species. ED. 



