LONG-TAILED TITMOUSE 



91 



FIQ. 33. LONG-TAILED TIT. natural size. 



of the genus Parus which remain to be described, and is often seen 

 associating with them in winter. In its colouring, language, and 

 nesting habits it 

 differs from them. 

 It is a somewhat sin- 

 gular-looking little 

 bird, with grey and 

 rose-coloured plu- 

 mage, short wings, 

 a very long tail, 

 and a short, conical 

 beak, which gives 

 the round head 

 something of a 

 parrot-like appear- 

 ance. 



This species is 

 found throughout 

 Great Britain and 

 Ireland, but is less 

 common in Scot- 

 land than in Eng- 

 land. It inhabits woods and plantations, and, like the other tits, is 

 social, active, and restless in its habits. After the breeding season the 

 old and young birds remain united, and spend the autumn and winter 

 months hi perpetually wandering through the woods ; but their travels 

 do not take them far from home. They are seen in a scattered party, 

 each member of which appears wholly occupied with his own search 

 for minute insects and their eggs and larvsB, but is ready at a given 

 signal to abandon his food-getting and join the others in their hurried 

 flight to the next tree. And as they pass from tree to tree their short 

 wings and long tails give them, as Knapp said, the appearance of a 

 flight of arrows. Leaving the woods, they roam over the surround- 

 ing country, making their way by short stages from tree to tree 

 and from bush to bush, along lanes and hedges, and visiting the 

 clumps of trees in parks and pasture-lands. They also come about 

 houses, not for the crumbs that fall from the table, but to continue 

 in gardens and shrubberies their endless search for minute insects. 

 Very restless and anxious little hearts are theirs, one would imagine, 

 from their incessant hurried Sittings from place to place, and the 

 small, querulous sounds in which they converse together. 



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