476 BRITISH BIRDS. 



PARUS PALUSTRIS. 



MARSH-TIT. 



(PLATE 9.) 



Parus palustris, Briss. Orn. iii. p. 555 (1760) ; Linn. Syst. Nat. i. p. 341 (1766) ; et 

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

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



Pcecile palustris (Linn.}, Kaup, Naturl. Syst. p. 114 (1829). 



Poecile communis, Degl. et Gerbe, Orn. Eur. i. p. 567 (1867, ex Baldenstein). 



The Marsh-Tit inhabits the whole of Europe, Asia Minor, Turkestan, 

 Siberia south of the Arctic circle, and North China, but is apparently 

 absent from Persia, Afghanistan, and Mongolia. The difference of climate 

 in such an extensive range has given rise to variations in size and in colour, 

 which are said to be characteristic of varieties, subspecies, or species, 

 according to the views of the writer. British examples are of a somewhat 

 more sandy brown than those from the continent of Western Europe, but 

 scarcely sufficiently so to warrant their separation. The variety of the 

 Marsh-Tit which is generally accepted as the typical form of P. palustris 

 is found throughout South-western Europe as far north and as far east 

 as St. Petersburg. In this form the tail is nearly even and short, the 

 upper parts are sandy brown, and the flanks are pale sandy brown. In 

 Scandinavia, north of lat. 61 up to the Arctic circle and in North-west 

 Russia, a form occurs having the tail rounded and slightly longer, the 

 upper parts are slate-grey, and the flanks are only slightly suffused with 

 brown : this form has been named P. borealis. In North-east Russia 

 and West Siberia the birds have the tail still further increased in length, 

 but the colour of the plumage does not exhibit any perceptible change : 

 to this form the name of P. baicalensis has been applied. In birds still 

 further to the east, in East Siberia and in the neighbourhood of Lake 

 Baikal, the tail again becomes nearly even and appears to reach its greatest 

 length, the bill is much smaller, and the slate-grey upper parts are slightly 

 suffused with brown : to these birds Taezaiiowski has given the name of 

 P. brevirostris ; and he assures me that the difference between the two 

 forms is well known to the bird-fanciers of Irkutsk, where they both occur. 

 The long-tailed, short-billed form is said to be useless as a cage-bird, not 

 possessing the powers of song which distinguish the other. In Kamt- 

 schatka a race, to which Bonaparte gave the name of P. kamtschatkensis *, 



* The P. kamtschatkensis described by Dresser in his ' Birds of Europe ' is nothing but 

 the Siberian form of P. borealis (P. baicalensis). The true P. kamtschatkensis has lately 

 been rediscovered by Dybowsky. 



