TITS. 449 



(Dicceum ementatum), ranging from India to Sumatra and China. Still more 

 beautiful is the Australian diamond-bird (Pardalotus affinis), a small short-tailed 

 species, the loveliness of whose plumage it is almost impossible to describe. 

 The general colour is, however, ashy grey, spotted and spangled all over 

 with red, yellow, orange, and black, with the tail-coverts rich dark red. Common 

 in some places among the large gum-trees of the deep forest, this bird has a 

 remarkably loud call-note, which can be heard from long distances. Generally 

 only a summer visitor to Victoria, although occasionally seen there during the 

 winter, it nests in hollow logs, or more rarely in a hole in the ground. 



THE TITS. 



Family 



Included, as we have already had occasion to remark, by Mr. Gates among 

 the Crows (from which they may be distinguished by the first primary quill 

 never exceeding half the length of the second, and being generally still shorter), 

 the tits are by most ornithologists regarded as constituting a distinct family, which 

 is placed by Dr. Sharpe near the honey-eaters. They constitute a considerable 

 group of small, agile birds, obtaining their food on trees, and living principally 

 upon insects, although they will also eat seeds and blossoms. They are all very 

 much alike, and have a short, conical, and entire beak, about one-third the length 

 of the head, the bristles at the rictus of the gape short, while those covering 

 the nostrils, although likewise short, are straight and very thick. The wing, 

 which contains ten primaries, is weak and rounded ; and the metatarsus is 

 scutellated. Thoroughly arboreal in their mode of life, seldom descending to the 

 ground, and often going about in parties of three or four, the tits are chiefly 

 denizens of the Old World, some inhabiting the forest-regions of Northern Europe 

 and Asia, while others are indigenous to the Himalaya, and others peculiar to 

 North America, there being one genus in New Zealand. 



The true tits are specially characterised by the absence of a 

 The True Tits. 



crest on the head ; and by the rounded tail, in which the outer pair of 



feathers fall short of the tip by the length of the claw of the first toe. Dis- 

 tributed over a large portion of the world, these birds are numerously represented 

 in Europe, while four are denizens of the Indian region ; and they are also common 

 in North America. The beak is generally strong and conical, and thus well adapted 

 to extract insects from their hiding-places in the bark of trees ; while the wings 

 are somewhat rounded, and the tail comparatively short. 



The great tit (Parus major) is a common bird in the northern parts 



of the Old World, living in companies which haunt woods and gardens 



during the greater part of the year. In England, writes Mr. Dresser, it " is a resident, 



frequenting during the summer season woods and large gardens, where its food, 



which at that season of the year consists almost exclusively of insects, is best to 



be found. They are excellent destroyers of the latter, and for that reason are 



welcomed in any garden where the owners are sufficiently enlightened to know and 



esteem their value. During the winter season they flock together in families, and 



VOL. in. 29 



