32 JANUARY 



wood are shaved and pared to an uniform slope. 

 Hoary lichen clothes stem and branches, excellent 

 harbour for many minute forms of life, enough 

 to account for the presence of a shoal of long-tailed 

 tits, restlessly flitting and twittering among the 

 branches. There are few birds more fascinating to 

 watch than these absurd little creatures. There are 

 about a score of them in this flock, though indeed it 

 is impossible to count them, for they are never still. 

 Two features distinguish this tit from all others, 

 namely, a most diminutive bill and a most extra- 

 vagant tail. The stature of the animal, measured 

 from the tip of the one to the end of the other, 

 amounts to the respectable stature of five inches and 

 a half ; but more than half of this is contributed by 

 the three central pairs of tail feathers. Generally it 

 is possible to account for, or at least guess at, the 

 meaning of abnormal features in animals ; most often 

 they may be recognised as an adaptation to habits 

 or condition of life, or as an ornament of the males 

 to tickle the fancy of their mates, or they remain as 

 a legacy from some obsolete organ. But in the bottle- 

 tit no such explanation holds good. Both sexes are 

 furnished alike, and there is not the slightest clew to 

 a reason why this diminutive bird should be equipped 



