BIRDS FROM NORTHERN AND WESTERN PERSIA, 861 



Parus major tnajor, L. — Great Tit. 



{Pariis tnajor caspius, Zarudny and Loudon). 



{Parus major karelini, Zarudny). 



3 d , Resht — February. 



1 $ , Resht— March. 



1 sex ? Resht — Januarj\ 



1 J . imm, 1 2 , Enzeli — June. 



1 imm. EnzeU — June (R. E. C). 



The Great Tit is a common resident in the low damp forest round EnzeU and 

 Resht, and also in the dry forest on the N. slopes of the Elburz. Young were 

 fljong in the third week of May at EnzeU. This series is entirely indistingui- 

 shable except by a slightly less size from long series of Parus tnajor major with 

 which I have compared it at Tring Museum and in ]\Ir. Witherby's coUection and 

 this conclusion has been independently arrived at by C. B. Ticehurst. The Great 

 Tit of the forest bordering the Caspian, was first described by Zarudny and 

 Loudon (1905) as a different sub-species under the name P. m. caspius: none 

 of the points on which they separated it appear to be reliable when a series is 

 examined, and these authors appear to have doubted whether it was reaUy 

 separable at the time when they first described it. Subsequently (1911a) Zarudny 

 replaced the name mspius by the name karelini, \^'ithout explaining on what 

 grounds he took this step. The wings of these specimens measure,,^ 70-74 mm., 

 1267 mm., measurements which are consistently a few millimetres less 

 than those of Western European birds. 



Parus major blanfordi, Prazak. — Persian Great Tit. 

 {Parus major zaijrossiensis, Zarudny and Loudon.) 



3^, Kermanshah — November and December 1918. 



3(^, Qazvin — December 1918 and January 1919. 



1 5 , Hamadan — December 1918. 



2$, 1$, Tehran— June (R. E. C). 



I found this race of the Great Tit a common bird in gardens and small woods 

 in the plateau in winter, and Cheesman found it common in summer. He 

 shot a female at Tehran " out of a party of flpng young : it contamed one 

 egg complete so was apparently lajdng for a second brood " Prazak's type of 

 P. m. blanfordi came from Tehran, and 1 can find no difference between Chees- 

 man's three skins from this place and a series collected by Witherby in S. W. 

 Persia ; these last must on geographical grounds be the P. m. zayrossiensis 

 of Zarudny and Loudon. Both Witherby's and Cheesman's skins were shot 

 in summer and are so worn that it is not possible to form a definite opinion 

 on them alone ; fortunately, however, there are in England at present eight or 

 nine skins from Shush, Shiraz &c., (coU. B. N. H. S.) ; some of them are \^-inter 

 birds. C. B. Ticehurst has compared them with my series and we agree that 

 blanfordi, 'Pvs^zaJk,=zayrossiensis Zar. and Loud. The wings of my specimens 

 measure, ^s 72-77 mm., $s 72 mm. The conclusion then is that the typical 

 Great Ti f Continental Europe is found in the forests of Gilan, and presum- 

 ably in the TaUsh, and in Mazandaran. In the plateau we find a very distmct 

 larger and paler form which we now know extends from Tehran, Qaz\-in, etc., 

 southwards and westwards to the Zagros country and Ears. All this was quite 

 correctly stated by Witherby in 1910, I cannot agree with Hartert's statement 

 ( Vccj. x>al Fauna, Vol. I, p. xxxii) that caspius is a sjaionym of blanfordi the range 

 ot which he gives as Tehran, Gilan, Mazandaran, Astera1>ad and the Tahsh 

 woodlands. 



