﻿36 Birds 



The head and throat are blue-black, excepting a large con- 

 spicuous white patch extending over the side from the bill to base 

 of neck, and a smaller white patch on the nape, which readily 

 distinguishes this from all other British titmice ; back slaty-olive, 

 shading into olive-buff on the rump ; wings and tail slaty-brown, 

 edged with pale yellowish-olive, and secondaries tipped with white ; 

 wing-coverts with broad white tips ; breast white, shading into buff 

 on the flanks and abdomen ; bill black ; feet leaden-grey. The 

 female is not so brightly coloured as the male. 



BLUE TITMOUSE. (PI. XIX.) 

 Parus cseruleus. 



This familiar little bird is distributed generally and is common 

 throughout Great Britain, except in the north-western districts of 

 Scotland, where it is locally rare, and has only very occasionally 

 occurred in the Orkneys and Shetlands. In the autumn numbers 

 arrive on our eastern coast from abroad. 



The Blue Tit selects all kinds of places for nesting purposes, 

 but always in some hole, crevice or other cavity in trees, walls, 

 banks, posts, and commonly in lamp-posts. The nest is usually 

 composed of wool, hair, moss and feathers ; the latter generally 

 form a substantial lining. The eggs number from eight to ten ; 

 they are pure white, speckled with rust-red. Usually the specks are 

 very small, but are liable to vary both in size and colour. Some 

 are spotted with grey and rufous-brown. 



The food of this bird is chiefly insects of all kinds ; the number 

 of caterpillars it destroys as food for its young is enormous. In 

 winter it likewise feeds largely on insects which it finds secreted 

 in the crevices of the bark of trees, and especially scale insects, 

 which are attached to the branches of various fruit trees, also 

 insect eggs are greedily devoured. The number of injurious insects 

 destroyed by the Blue Tit renders it a very beneficial bird, but in 

 early autumn it is, however, injurious to certain kinds of pears 

 by picking holes close to the stalk. 



This beautiful little bird has the crown silvery-blue, encircled 

 by a white line extending from the white forehead ; a deep indigo- 

 blue stripe runs from the eye to the nape, where it unites with a broad 

 band of the same colour which encircles the neck and extends along 



