THE BIRDS OF HELIGOLAND 413 



213. Great Titmouse [KOHLMEISE]. 

 PARUS MAJOR, Linn. 



Heligolandish : Groot Eollows. Hollows being the Heligolandish name for 

 Titmouse. 



Parus major. Naumann, iv. 9. 



Great Titmouse. Dresser, iii. 79. 



Mesange charbonniere. Temminck, Manuel, i. 287, iii. 208. 



As has been already stated, these beautiful birds by their 

 ceaseless activity and merry, clear-sounding call-notes, used in 

 former years to contribute not a little in giving a special touch of 

 liveliness to the annual autumn migration. These birds used 

 always to appear in greatly increased numbers at times of excep- 

 tionally strong migrations of eastern migrants, as for instance, 

 during the memorable autumn of 1847, in the course of which the 

 birds occurred almost daily in large numbers from the end of 

 September until after the middle of December. In my journal of 

 that year I find, among other notes, the following : 9th of October, 

 P. major and cceruleus, numberless ; ater, a few ; 10th, thousands of 

 the same species ; llth, extremely numerous ; 12th, enormous 

 quantities ; 13th, ditto ; 14th, thousands and fairly large numbers 

 almost daily until the end of the month, and throughout the 

 whole of November. The last note, on the 16th of December, is as 

 follows : Parus major daily, in fairly large numbers which here 

 means at least many hundreds. 



Although a powerful migration of this kind must be counted 

 as among exceptional phenomena, this Titmouse used, nevertheless, 

 until the beginning of the sixties, to occur here every autumn in 

 more or less considerable quantities ; all this, however, was changed 

 to such an extent that, during the last few decades, only single or 

 a few scattered individuals have been met with ; so that at the end 

 of October 1884 I had to note in my journal : ' Not a single Parus 

 major, nor any other species of Titmouse, throughout the whole 

 of the month ; the same being the case in November.' The autumn 

 of 1878 furnishes the last exceptional instance in which this species as 

 well as P. cwruleus occurred in abundance, while P. ater and P. cau- 

 datus, especially the latter, were represented in larger numbers than 

 for a long time previously. Isolated instances of the numerous occur- 

 rences of this or that bird, in the course of many years of scarcity, 

 sufficiently prove that the long absence of a species is not due to 

 its having diminished in the number of individuals, but must be 



