THE GREAT TIT. 201 



At Aberarder, Inverness-shire, I observed this species to be 

 numerous in September, 1842, particularly in Dunmaglass wood, 

 composed chiefly of larch and Scotch fir : about the middle of the 

 month some were heard singing. 



The Fire-chested Regultjs (R. ignicapillus) is stated to have 

 been observed in a garden at Tralee, but without further information, 

 cannot be included in the Irish Fauna. 



THE GREAT TIT* 



Par us major, Linn. 



Is common and resident, 



Frequenting town plantations as well as those in the country, 

 I have observed it also in districts destitute of trees, and where 

 hawthorn hedges afforded the only shelter. Its sawing song, 

 is commenced very early ; in three successive years this was heard 

 about Belfast on the 5th of January ; 23rd and 24th of Dec. j 

 and towards the end of January was once heard when ice, an 

 inch in thickness, covered the ponds near the songster's station. 

 Some time after the breeding season, as in September, the sawing 

 is again commonly heard. A pair of these birds along with two 

 blue titmice daily, during a winter, visited the window-sill of a 

 friend's house in the country f at a particular hour, where crumbs 

 of bread were laid for them. In the following winter the latter 

 species only renewed its visits, which were daily, until the severe 

 weather in the middle of February, when a pair of great titmice, 

 presumed to be the same, re-appeared, and continued to come as 

 in the former season. 



On looking to the food contained in three of the P. major 

 killed in February and March, it was found to be seeds, and small 

 coleopterous insects and larvae. In a friend's garden near Belfast, 



* Titmouse is the name commonly applied to all the British species of the genus 

 Parus. 



t They are occasionally seen on the window-sills of our house in Belfast, with- 

 out being tempted by food ; but the house is situated in a square partially planted with 

 trees and shrubs, and before it is a narrow belt of shrubbery. 



