214 OTJR NATIVE SONGSTERS. 



heard among the hushes and osiers which fringe 

 the waters, merry as they may he, arrest our foot- 

 steps by their music. Tlie blue tit is useful in 

 ridding us of insects in spring and summer, and is 

 still more so in clearing them when they lie hidden 

 in the buds of winter or early spring. So cleverly 

 does it pick the bones of small birds, on which 

 it feeds, that Klein proposes to employ it in the 

 preparation of skeletons. 



Then, too, we have that busy little bird, the Cole- 

 tit, or Colcmousc {Pants oter), which everybody 

 who has lived in the country knows as a gi'cat fre- 

 quenter of our gardens and shrubberies, coming 

 there to seize the insects, or to gather the seeds 

 of the pines and larches, which it stores away in 

 some hole, for its future necessities. But its song, 

 if song it may be called, is little more than a chirp, 

 and cannot rival at all the soft, clear, ringing notes 

 which may be heard among the reeds of the 

 marshes, where the rare Bearded Titmouse [Cola- 

 mopliilus hiarmicus) sings them out in soft and silver 

 tones. But the song of the Long-tailed Tit* (Pants 



* The Long-tailed Tit is five inches and a half in length. 

 Head and face greyish white ; a patch of black passes over each 

 eye ; back and rump greyish-red, with a broad triangular patch 



