52 PARING. 



FAMILY IX PARING (TITS). 



GENUS XXV PARUS (TIT). 



SPECIES 51 THE GREAT TIT. 



Parus major. Linn. 

 Mesange charbonniere. Temm. 



Blackcap. Oxeye. Tomtit. 



THE great tit is the largest in size of the family to which it 

 belongs, and, next to the blue tit, the most common of the 

 Parinae in Ireland. Frequenting woods and thickets, it re- 

 sorts to the vicinity of the garden during summer, where its 

 visits become " more free than welcome," and might well be 

 dispensed with, were it not for the services it renders in de- 

 stroying aphides. Although all the Irish titmice are more or 

 less distinguished by their curious patchwork of colouring, the 

 burnished steel blue of the head, pure white cheek-patches, 

 and the yellow breast of this species, all singularly neatly 

 arranged, give a clean -looking appearance, which, perhaps, 

 exceeds in beauty the other members of its family. 



The great tit is also, though in a very small degree, a poly- 

 glot, changing from its own loud u tee, tee," to the merry 

 u pink, pink," of the chaffinch ; or, again, catching up the 

 prolonged u waait" of the willow wren, it essays the "if hee," 

 u if hee," of the cole tits in the adjoining plantation. During 

 the season of incubation the great tit repeats a peculiar grating 

 note, closely resembling the sound produced by sharpening a 

 saw, and which may be heard at a considerable distance. 



Indigenous. 



SPECIES 52 THE BLUE TIT. 



Parus cceruleus. Linn. 

 Mesange bleue. Temm. 



Stonechat. Tomtit. Bluebonnet. 



THIS gaily-marked little fellow is a most common species, 

 and abundantly distributed over the 'island. Fearless and 

 familiar, it is generally to be found in the vicinity of culti- 

 vated districts, and, unlike the robin (a settled pensioner on 

 our bounty), this wandering Bedouin settles down on whatever 

 oasis appears first in view, and becomes at once perfectly at 



