468 BRITISH BIRDS. 



PARUS (LERULEUS. 

 BLUE TIT. 



(PLATE 9.) 



Parus cseruleus, Briss. Orn. iii. p. 544 (1760) : Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 341 (1766) ; et 

 auctorum plurimorum Latham, Gmelin, Bechstein, Naumann, Temminck, 

 Gray, (Bonaparte), Deyland, Gerbe, Newton, Dresser, &c. 



Cyanistes ceeruleus (Linn.), Kemp. Natilrl. Syst. p. 99 (1829). 



Parus coerulescens (Linn.'), Brehm, Voy. Deutschl. p. 463 (1831). 



The Blue Tit is one of the most widely spread and certainly one of the 

 best -known of our native birds. It is found in all suitable districts 

 throughout the British Islands, from the Channel Islands in the south to 

 the Orkneys and the Shetlands in the extreme north, where, however, it is 

 a very rare straggler, but one specimen having been obtained in the first - 

 mentioned of the latter two groups of islands. 



The geographical distribution of the Blue Tit is very restricted ; and con- 

 sequently the bird does not present any of the differences which we shall 

 find in treating of some of the other species of this group. Each species 

 of Blue Tit appears to be subject to very little variation, and to be separated 

 from its congeners by a hard and fast line. The Blue Tit is distributed 

 over the whole of temperate and Southern Europe, as far east as the Ural 

 Mountains and the Caucasus. In Norway, owing to the comparative 

 mildness of the climate, it is found as far north as lat. 64; but in Russia 

 it has not yet been obtained further north than lat. 61. Meves states 

 that it is said to have been found at Archangel ; bat neither Hencke, Piot- 

 tuch, Harvie-Brown, nor myself met with it there. Its nearest ally is 

 P. persicus, from Persia, which differs in being much paler in colour and in 

 having broader white margins to the greater wing-coverts. In Tunis, 

 Algeria, and Morocco the Blue Tit is represented by P. ultramarinus, a 

 well marked species, differing principally in having the back slate-grey 

 instead of yellowish green, and the black on the throat more developed. 

 In the Canary Islands P. ultramarinus is replaced by P. teneriffa, an island 

 form, only differing from its ally of the mainland by the absence of the 

 pale tips to the greater wing-coverts, the very indistinct tips to the inner- 

 most secondaries (which in its ally are broad and conspicuous), and by 

 having a slightly longer tail. The next nearest ally of the Blue Tit is 

 P. pleskii, from Central Russia, a blue-backed pale form with the portions 

 of the underparts that are yellow in the Blue Tit pure white, with the 

 exception of a pale yellow spot on the breast. Another European species 

 found in Russia and Siberia is the Azure Tit, P. cyanus, somewhat similar 

 to the last mentioned, but still paler blue on the back, with a nearly white 

 head, without the black throat and gorget, without the yellow on the 



