THE GREAT TIT. 131 



parts dusky black, and not so strongly marked as in the 



adults. 



NOTE. The Great Tit is the largest of the family in England, and is 

 easily distinguished by the black head and the black line which parts the 

 centre of the yellow breast. 



Range in Great Britain. May be considered a constant resi- 

 dent in all three kingdoms, though it becomes rarer in the 

 north of Scotland, and is only an accidental visitor to certain 

 islands of the north, such as the Isle of Skye and the Shet- 

 lands. 



Kange outside the British Islands. The Great Tit is distributed 

 over Europe, and extends eastward through Asia across to the 

 Pacific Ocean, being found in Palestine, Persia, and Central 

 Asia, but does not occur in any part of the Indian Region, being 

 replaced by allied forms in the Himalayas, in China, and the 

 Japanese Islands. Its northernmost range is the Arctic Circle 

 in lat. 66}4 , and it gradually decreases towards the east. Thus 

 Mr. Seebohm describes its occurrence in the valley of the 

 Yenesei up to lat 58, and on the Pacific coast the most nor- 

 therly point known is Middendorffs record of 55. 



Habits. The Great Tit is a very cheery bird, and is found in 

 all kinds of places, visiting along with the Blue Tit even the 

 parks in the centre of London. It can at any time be enticed 

 into gardens and the neighbourhood of houses, by the simple 

 expedient of suspending some morsels of fat, or little bladders 

 of lard, and it is while clinging to these, in every imaginable 

 attitude, that the graceful motions of this active little bird can 

 best be studied. During the breeding season it is rather shy, and 

 does its best to escape observation, but in the winter it becomes 

 much more in evidence, and its bright colours render it a 

 somewhat conspicuous object as it frequents the woods or the 

 bushes in the neighbourhood of a house. Even in winter it is 

 often found in pairs flying about in the undergrowth of the 

 woods, but it not unfrequently joins in a merry party of other 

 Tits, Creepers, and Nuthatches as they course through the 

 woods on a fine winter's day. This habit of assembling is not 

 confined to Tits in this country, for we remember on one oc- 

 casion in the pine-woods of Simla, where there was generally 

 silence and an absence of bird-life, how pleasing it was to 



K 2 



