THE TITS. 129 



hole in a tree or wall being selected, and, in the former 

 instance, the entrance to the nest is plastered up by the birds, 

 leaving only a small hole for ingress. The nest is scarcely 

 worthy of the name, consisting only of a few grasses or dead 

 leaves. The most remarkable nest of a Nuthatch is to be seen 

 in the Natural History Museum, to which it was given by the 

 late Mr. F. Bond as a natural curiosity. It is built in the side 

 of a haystack, to which the birds had carried as much as 

 eleven pounds' weight of clay, and had thus constructed a solid 

 nest in this apparently unfavourable position. 



Eggs. Five to eight in number. Ground-colour pure white, 

 thickly spotted with rufous, with underlying spots of grey. 

 The rufous markings are generally large and bold, and often 

 encircle the larger end of the egg, but in many clutches the 

 markings consist of a sprinkling of red dots all over the egg, 

 occasionally relieved by some larger spots of dark rufous. 

 Axis, o - 7-o'85 inch; diam., o*5-o'6. 



THE TITS. FAMILY PARID^S. 



The members of this family are generally distributed over 

 the northern parts of the Old and New World, ranging as far 

 south as Southern Mexico in America, and in the Old World 

 all over Europe, Africa, and Asia, as far as the Indo-Malayan 

 Islands. The Tits are remarkable for their powerful little 

 conical bills, which are densely beset with feathers at the base, 

 so as to entirely hide the nostrils. The tarsus is scutellated. 

 The family may be roughly divided into True Tits, Crested 

 Tits, Long-tailed Tits, and Penduline Tits, all but the latter 

 group being represented in England. The Reedlings (Panurus) 

 are also generally classed in this family, but have little to do 

 with the other Paridcs. By some recent writers, notably by 

 Mr. Oates, the Tits have been placed in close proximity to the 

 Crows. With these birds, in our humble opinion, they have 

 little in common, beyond a certain carnivorous propensity. 



THE TRUE TITS. GENUS PARUS. 



Partis^ Linn., Syst. Nat., i., p. 341 (1766). 



Type, P. major, Linn. 



The genus Parus includes not only the True Tits, such as 



1. K 



