368 PARIDA. 
this species on the Continent, informs me that their note 
has some resemblance to that of the Cole Tit, but a pecu- 
har shake at the finish enables you to distinguish it among 
others of the tribe; its simple call-note is also somewhat 
different. They seem partial to woods where fir and oak 
trees are mixed, the holes in the oaks generally serving 
them for their nests. The female lays eight or ten white 
eggs, with a few spots and specks of pale red; the length 
of the egg seven lines, and six lines in breadth. 
The adult male has the beak nearly black; the irides 
hazel; the cheeks white, spotted with black; the fore- 
head black and white; the elongated feathers on the top 
of the head, which form the conical crest, are black at — 
the base broadly margined with white; from the eye, 
passing over the ear-coverts, is a black streak, which joms 
a circular band of the same colour curving forwards below 
the ear-coverts; behind this is a patch of white bounded 
by another black band curving forward towards the side 
of the neck: the back, wing, and tail-coverts, hair-brown ; 
quill and tail-feathers rather darker; chin and throat 
covered with a black triangular patch of large size, which 
descends to the upper part of the breast; all the under 
surface of the body below the black is of a whitish fawn 
colour; under surface of the wing and tail-feathers pearl 
grey ; legs, toes, and claws, lead colour. 
The whole length of the bird is four inches and a half. 
From the carpal joint to the end of the wing, two inches 
and a half: the first quill-feather less than half the length 
of the second ; the third and fifth feathers equal in length, 
and longer than the second ; the fourth the longest feather 
in the wing. 
The female has the black patch on the throat of smaller 
size than that of the male. 
