THE COAL-TITS. 137 



tinent to the east coast. We have seen some specimens killed 

 in summer in the British Islands which were scarcely to be told 

 from the grey-backed Coal-Tits of the Continent, and Mr. 

 Howard Saunders doubts the migration of the true P. ater to 

 our shores, and believes that we have grey-backed as well as 

 olive-backed individuals in our islands. We have carefully 

 looked through the series of Coal-Tits in the British Museum, 

 and on comparing the series of true P. ater with a number of 

 P. britannicus^ we find no difficulty in recognising them at any 

 season of the year. British birds occasionally, during the 

 breeding season, when the plumage gets worn, lose somewhat 

 of their olive-brown dress, which is so distinct in winter, and 

 are greyer than at the latter season, but they never attain the 

 clear slaty-blyje colour of their continental relatives, and we re- 

 iterate the opinion which we held in 1872, when we first 

 described the British bird as distinct, that the two forms are 

 well worthy of recognition. 



Range outside the British Islands. Generally distributed in 

 Europe, but replaced in Algeria by Pants ledouci, and in Cyprus 

 by P. Cypriotes. It is found as high north as 65 N. lat. in Scan- 

 dinavia, and extends throughout Europe and Northern Asia, 

 the form of Eastern Siberia and Japan having a slightly longer 

 crest and being distinguished as P. pekinensis. In the Hima- 

 layas several representative species of Coal-Tits are found. 



Habits. Similar to those of P. britannicus. 



Nest. Similar to that of P. britannicus. 



Eggs. Six to ten in number, scarcely distinguishable from 

 those of the Blue Tit ; white, spotted with rufous in exactly 

 the same way as the eggs of the latter bird, but the red mark- 

 ings on some of the eggs occasionally very faint, and, in most 

 clutches, showing two shades of rufous. Axis, 0-6-07 inch ; 

 diam, 0*5. 



IV. THE COAL-TIT. PARUS BRITANNICUS. 



(Plate XVI. , Fig. i.) 



Parus ater (nee. L.), Macg., Br. B., ii., p. 440 (1839) '> Newt, 

 ed. Yarr., i., p. 489 (1874 pt.) ; Gadow, Cat. B. Brit. 

 Mus., viii., p. 40 (1883 pt.) ; Lilford, Col. Fig. Brit. B.. 

 pt. iv. (1887); Saunders, Man., p. 97 (1889, pt.). 



