Birds by Land and Sea 



antics in the trees are the same as those of the allied 

 species, but it goes oftener to the ground to feed, 

 and remains longer there. 



The marsh-tit common enough in some districts 

 does not appear to visit us at such times. 



Still rarer visitors are the long-tailed tit and 

 golden-crested wren, but on one bright day in 

 December I heard a shrill " zee-zee-zee-ing," and 

 looking along a plot of low rose bushes, saw what, 

 to judge by the bold light and dark markings of the 

 upper parts and the sudden flashing of the white 

 outer feathers of the extravagantly long tails, might 

 have been a couple of pied wagtails taken to the 

 clambering antics of tits. However, the piercing 

 " zee-zee-zee ! " of the restless creatures as they 

 flitted from bush to bush, calling to one another as 

 they went, declared the long-tailed tit. Some dwarf 

 apple trees, which had been plagued with the fly 

 during the summer, next claimed their attention, and 

 I was able to watch them unseen for a long time 

 from a window a few yards above. Their topsy- 

 turvy antics on the branches stamp them at once 

 as tits, and it scarcely requires a second glance to 

 distinguish them from the shorter-tailed tits which 

 visit us continuously through the winter days. If 

 one should fail to recognize the bold " five-barred " 

 pattern of alternate black and pink into which the 

 colour scheme of their upper parts roughly resolves 

 itself, the tiny bill, or the crown slashed with white 

 between black edgings, there is nothing among the 



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