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Eastern Europe. It was not everywhere common in Eastern Siberia, but rather more frequently 
met with in the woods of the Baikal mountains, though much rarer in Transbaikal and the 
Amoor. Middendorff procured the present species at Udskoi Ostrog in December and January. 
In size his specimens were about equal to middling-sized European birds; the belly was hardly 
yellowish, but rather dirty yellowish-green in colour. 
With us in England the Great Titmouse is a resident, frequenting during the summer season 
woods and large gardens where its food, which at that season of the year consists almost 
exclusively of insects, is best to be found. They are excellent destroyers of the latter, and for 
that reason are welcomed in any gardens where the owners are sufficiently enlightened to know 
and esteem their value. During the winter season they flock together in families, and either 
roam about wherever there are trees, in company with Creepers, Titmice, and other small 
birds, diligently seeking after insects and their eggs in the bark of trees, or else remain in the 
neighbourhood of inhabited places picking up what refuse they can find. They are remarkably 
fond of picking a bone, and may often be seen near the kitchen-door watching for any stray 
scraps that may be thrown out. Some friends of ours who are fond of enticing the Titmice 
to remain about their gardens, feed them during the winter by hanging lumps of suet in a small 
net on a piece of wire fixed across the top of a high stick, in order that they may be out 
of reach of the cats; and I have often been astonished to see how soon a large piece of suet is 
demolished by these little birds. Often two or three may be seen clinging on to the same piece, 
pecking at it vigorously, evidently enjoying the good fare prepared for them. Lively and restless, 
the Great Titmouse is always to be seen on the move, and, to use the expression made use of 
by the old Bushman with regard to the Laps, “life appears with them to be one perpetual 
struggle for ‘grub.’” When hunting after insects, &c., in trees, they appear to examine every 
part most carefully, moving along and round the branches, now clinging head downwards, 
now moving along the limbs of the tree almost like a Creeper, or clinging to the end of a 
small branch, examining carefully a bud to see if any insect is harboured therein. ‘This is 
done in a most businesslike, quiet manner, and only now and then a low call, zee, is uttered ; 
but when taking a short flight from tree to tree or bush to bush, they utter their cheerful 
loud note. 
Not only do they devour insects and seeds, but will attack and kill small and weakly birds, 
or even sickly or wounded individuals of their own species, annihilating them by repeated blows 
on the head with their powerful bill; and having done this, they immediately proceed to open 
the skull and devour the brain, which has a peculiar charm for them. When in confinement, 
they frequently attack and kill other small birds which are placed in the same cage. 
We copy the following curious anecdote respecting this habit of the Great Titmouse, com- 
municated to the ‘Zoologist’ by the Rev. E. Charles Moor, of Woodbridge, Suffolk :— 
“arly in the morning of the 13th November, 1870, I noticed a Greater Titmouse (Parus 
major) fly down from the housetop with a living Bat in his beak, and to our astonishment he set 
to work pecking at it, evidently for the purpose of killing it, which eventually he did, the Bat 
making only a weak resistance by gently flapping its wings. The bird then flew away with its 
prey to a rose-tree, some ten yards off. Revisiting the spot in two hours’ time we found that its 
little beak had penetrated the Bat’s skull and cleared its brains out.” 
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