THE LONG-TAILED TIT. 401 



but the colours in different individuals are subject to con- 

 siderable variation. Tn some, the dark arch over the eye is 

 wanting, and in others the greater part of the cheeks is 

 dusky, with only a few white feathers radiating from the eye. 

 But the form and size of the birds are so peculiar, that they 

 are at once known from every other species, whatever may be 

 their colour. 



They are tree birds, or more strictly bush birds, and keep 

 so closely to their cover, that they appear much less nu- 

 merous than they really are. That is not owing to any 

 deficiency in wing ; for though the wings are short in pro- 

 portion to the tail, they are not so in proportion to the 

 weight of the bird. 



The flight is vigorous for such small birds, and the length 

 of tail gives them a very peculiar appearance. 



Long-tailed tits are among the most active and even 

 laborious of birds ; and diminutive as they are in size, they 

 are so well knit in their little bodies, that it appears as if no 

 degree of fatigue could wear them out. Their food appears 

 to be the very smallest species of insects in the hedges and 

 copses; and though the number of these be great, the indi- 

 viduals are so minute, that it requires many of them to form 

 a meal even for a long-tailed tit. The birds are accordingly 

 incessantly in motion among the twigs the live-long day, arid 

 never use their wings in sportive flight, but in leaping from 

 spray to spray, or posting from bush to bush. Saw-flies and 

 their larvae, and eggs, aphides, ants, small spiders, and gene- 

 rally all the minute creatures with which the twigs and 

 branches swarm in summer, constitute their food at that 

 season of the year; and as the first races of these make 

 their appearance, even with a mid-day gleam, in the very 

 early part of the season, and continue race after race, till the 

 very latest period of the autumn, there is plenty for the 

 birds for at least nine months of the year, only that plenty 



VOL. I. 2 D 



