THE GREAT TIT. 389 



the bill, and some of them are very successful fly-catchers and 

 bee-eaters. 



Their flying feathers are very firm and stiff; the wings 

 rather rounded, the third or fourth quill being the longest, 

 and the first in some of the species merely rudimental. The 

 tails are in general strong and stiff; so that those species 

 which hunt on the bark of trees, can use them as supports ; 

 and they are more or less produced, and square or forked, 

 according to the habit of the species. 



In fact, the tits have habits of so mixed a character, that 

 they do not accord well with any of the orders into which the 

 feathered tribes have been arranged; though, as insects form 

 their prevailing food, they may perhaps, in the present state 

 of the science, be with more propriety classed with the insec- 

 tivorse than with any other order. Their very name has been 

 objected to by some. Not the syllable tit, which is so general 

 in its meaning that it might be applied equally to any genus 

 of neat little birds ; but the syllable mouse, which is as 

 descriptive of their habits as the name of a quadruped can 

 be of the habits of birds. One regrets the introduction into 

 natural history of that small verbal criticism, which has no 

 sense or meaning even in an etymological sense ; because, 

 when the public find that the professors of any science 

 are merely triflers, it is difficult to prevent them from con- 

 cluding that the science itself is a trifle, and avoiding it 

 accordingly. 



There are eight species of tits enumerated as British birds ; 

 and they are probably all resident, though some of them are 

 much more common and generally distributed over the coun- 

 try than others ; but there is one species about the habits of 

 which, as a British bird, very little is known. 



THE GEEAT TIT (Parus major). 

 The great tit, ox eye, or torn tit, (the latter name is. also 



