LONG-TAILED TIT. 217 



sole architect. They both, as it were, knead it during its 

 formation, with their breasts and the shoulders of their 

 wings, aided by every variety of posture of the body. 



The eggs are from ten to twelve in number, and occa- 

 sionally, but very rarely, as many as sixteen. In reference 

 to these cases, Mr. H. Horsfall, of Calverley House, near 

 Bradford, Yorkshire, writes as follows in the 'Zoologist,' page 

 2567: 'I suspect where the greater number is found, there 

 will be more than one pair of birds attached to the same 

 nest. I have known several instances where a considerable 

 number of birds have had one nest in common: in one instance 

 there were nine.' They are sometimes entirely white, or with 

 the spots almost obsolete, but generally spotted a little with 

 pale red. They are, as may be imagined, very small, being 

 about the size of a pea. 



The whole plumage of these birds is soft and downy, and, 

 being much puffed out, gives them even a larger appearance, 

 small as that is, than their real size; and the neck appears, 

 as it were, covered by a cape from the head. In summer, 

 the white is purer and the wings more brown. Male; weight, 

 about two drachms; length, about five inches and a half; 

 bill, glossy jet black, and nearly hid by the bristly feathers, 

 white with brown tips, which surround its base. Iris, hazel; 

 over the eye is a narrow black stripe, said to disappear in 

 old birds; 'head on the sides, forehead, and crown, neck on 

 the under part, and nape, greyish white; throat, as the 

 head; breast, greyish white, tinged on the sides with rusty 

 roseate, shaded with purple or vinous. Back, dull roseate; 

 on the upper central part of it is a triangular patch of 

 black, a continuation of the junction of the black stripes 

 over the eyes. 



The wings are less in length than the tail by two inches 

 and a quarter; the first quill is half an inch long, the second 

 shorter than the third, the third than the fourth, the fourth 

 than the fifth, which is the longest, the ninth about the 

 same as the second. Greater wing coverts, brownish black; 

 lesser wing coverts, brownish black, tipped with white; pri- 

 maries, brownish black; the first feather is very short, the 

 second longer, the third still longer, the fourth a little 

 longer, the fifth the longest in the wing; underneath they 

 are grey, with silvery edges; secondaries, the same, broadly 

 edged with white; tertiaries, the same, edged with white; 

 larger and lesser under wing coverts, white. The tail, which 



