394: INSECTI VOILE. 



or it is discovered that they present nothing eatable. So 

 successful are they in that operation, that they soon bring 

 out a heap of thatch ; and, though that is of course no part 

 of their purpose, assist in forming a nestling place for the 

 sparrows. They also sometimes draw straws from corn- 

 stacks ; but they do that much more rarely than some of the 

 birds which feed more exclusively upon vegetable matters. 

 "While engaged in these labours they continue repeating their 

 grating cry; but as soon as the weather begins to relent, they 

 resort to the trees, preparatory to the labours of the summer, 

 which, in their case, is no idle time. 



THE COLE-TIT (Parus ater). 



The cole -tit is a woodland bird, as well as the former 

 species ; but it inhabits colder places, where the trees are of 

 more stunted growth, and is also more abundant in copses 

 and young plantations on the margins of the wilds. It is 

 found in all the wooded parts of Scotland, even to a consider- 

 able height in the mountain glens ; and is indeed much more 

 abundant in that part of the island than in England. In 

 both countries, perhaps, it has been confounded with another 

 species ; that which is, not with the strictest propriety per- 

 haps, called the marsh tit. But though the two are often 

 found as neighbours, their appearance, their habits, and their 

 haunts, are all perfectly distinct. The cole-tit has the black 

 on the head extending to the lower part of the neck, but pied 

 with three bright and very conspicuous patches of white; 

 an oblong one from the gape to the lower part of the neck, 

 on each side, pointed forward at the upper extremity and 

 backward at the lower, and in some positions of the head 

 extending to the white on the shoulder, and one on the nape 

 wholly within the black at the lower edge. The black on 

 the head of the marsh-tit does not come below the eye, but 

 forms a remarkably well-defined cap extending from the bill 



