THE TITMICE. 65 



dart out after insects, though I have seen one in eager but unsuccessful pursuit of a Butterfly 

 (Terias) ; but it seems to love the centre of thick trees, where it sits announcing its presence, or flits 

 from bough to bough as you approach, so that it is not easy to get a sight of it. This bird does not 

 winter with us, but leaves, with the Grey Petebary (Tyrannus domiiticensis), at the beginning 

 of October. It returns early, and, like the bird just named, evidently makes an eastward progress, 

 arriving at the south-west end of the island first. On the 26th of March, on my return to Bluefields, 

 after a visit to Spanish Town, I heard its well-known voice, but my lad had noticed it a week 

 before. From this time every grove I might almost say every tree had its bird, uttering with 

 incessant iteration and untiring enei'gy, from its umbrageous concealment, Sweet-John ! John-to-whit ! 

 Sweet- John-lo-whit ! John-t'whit sweet-John-to-whit ! I can scarcely understand how the call can 

 be Avritten Wkip-Tom-KeUy, as the accent, if I may so say, is most energetically on the last 

 syllable. Nor have I ever heard this appellation given to it in Jamaica. After Jidy we rarely 

 hear John-to-whit, but to-wldt to-whoo, and sometimes a soft dimple chirp, or sip sip, whispered so 

 gently as scarcely to be audible. This, however, I have reason, to believe, is the note of the young, 

 for I have heard young ones repeatedly utter it when sitting on a twig, receiving from time to time, 

 with gaping beak and quivering wing, the food contributed by the dam." Mr. Gosse says that the 

 bird feeds on seeds, berries, and insects, building in June and July, and lays three eggs, white, with 

 a few small red-brown spots thinly scattered over the surface, sometimes very minute and few. 



THE TWELFTH FAMILY OF THRUSH-LIKE PERCHING BIRDS. THE TITMICE (Paridte). 



In this family the bill is short and conical, but without any notch at the tip of the upper 

 mandible ; the nostrils are generally concealed by bristles ; the tarsi are very distinctly scaled, 

 especially in the freshly-killed birds ; the primary quills are ten in number. Titmice are found all 

 over the northern parts of the Old and New World, but disappear in South America ; nor are 

 they represented in Australia or Oceania. Only a limited number of species are met with in 

 Africa. 



The Titmice maybe divided into two sub-families : the true Titmice (Parime), and the Nuthatches 

 (Sittince). The Titmice proper are lively and cheerful little birds, and even the murky air of London 

 does not seem to be able to damp the spirits of such an incorrigible little chatterer as the Bluo 

 Titmouse, whose cheery note may often be heai'd even in the squares of the great city, while it 

 has more than once occurred to the author to welcome him in the immediate vicinity of the British 

 Museum, as he threads his way through the smoke-blackened trees in the adjacent gardens. It 

 would not be fair to take one of these dusky London birds and to compare its colours with those 

 of a country cousin, as the differences between them could be accounted for by the nature of the 

 localities which they respectively inhabit; but this subject recalls a very interesting problem in 

 connection with the avi-fauna of the British Islands. It is a notorious fact that the animals and 

 birds which are found in an island long separated from its adjacent continent are generally different 

 in a greater or less degree from their continental relatives. 



This circumstance, however, appears to have been strangely overlooked in the case of the British 

 Islands by most ornithologists ; and the fact that the British Long-tailed Titmouse was a different 

 species from the Long-tailed Titmouse of the Continent an assertion which the author published 

 in 1868 was received with inci-edulity by authorities who would not hesitate to admit similar 

 instances of specific difference if the case occurred in some other portion of the globe than Europe. 

 As a matter of fact, there is scarcely a resident species belonging to the British Islands which 

 does not differ more or less from its Continental representative. Such remarks do not of course refer 

 to migratory birds, which visit all parts of Europe alike, but the generality of the British birds 

 which remain all the year, and do not leave the country, are always duller in colour than 

 specimens of the same species on the Continent. Striking instances of this are seen in the 

 Bullfinch, the Chaffinch, the Yellow-hammer, and many other birds, but the Titmice offer the 

 strongest evidence. The Blue Titmouse, although a sufficiently pleasing bird in its coloration, 

 cannot compare for brilliancy of tint with a specimen shot in France. The Coal Titmouse of 

 England appears to be specifically distinct from the Coal Titmouse of the Continent, which has a blue 



