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2 
white, the upper part of the breast ashy brown on the sides, and a slight shade of the same colour tinging 
the sides of the body; bill and feet lead-colour; irisdark brown. Total length 5:5 inches, culmen 05, 
wing 2°8, tail 2°5, tarsus 0°75. 
Adult Female. In general colours resembling the adult male, but the crown and head brownish. It 
appears to be a little larger than the male. Total length 6 inches, culmen 0:5, wing 2°9, tail 2°65, 
tarsus 0°8. 
Winter plumage. In both sexes the colours are more obscure than in summer, all the feathers being edged 
with dusky olive-brown, the head and throat strongly washed with this colour, as are also the white 
parts of the plumage more or less; the whitish edgings to the wing-coverts are much broader, and 
tinged with fulvous. The summer plumage is gained by the gradual wearing off of these edges. 
Young Male. Very much paler than the adult either in winter or summer, the head scarcely darker, and 
the back exhibiting distinct whitish shaft-lines to the feathers; sides of the face and underparts of the 
body dull white shaded with ashy brown; throat dull greyish brown, with whitish shaft-lines, very 
much paler than in the adults; greater wing-coverts tipped with white. 
Explanation of the Plate. The birds figured have all been procured in Greece and Asia Minor by Dr. Kriper, 
and are at present in our own collection: they represent the adult male and female, and the young 
male, the latter being the left-hand figure. Our descriptions are taken from the same birds. 
TuE Sombre Titmouse is entirely a bird of South-eastern Europe, extending westward as far as 
Hungary and Illyria, and southwards to Palestine. Its chief home seems to be Greece, whence 
it ranges into Southern Russia. 
The original specimens of this bird were obtained by the late Johann Natterer in Illyria; 
and examples of his collecting are still preserved in the Vienna Museum. In Hungary Herr 
Zelebor procured specimens in the Banat. 
Von der Mihle says it “arrives late in Greece, in the Morea towards the end of April or 
early in May, and inhabits the small valleys where wild prune- and other fruit-trees abound, never 
being found on the higher ones. Each pair has its regular district, which it visits daily. It isa 
shy, timid bird, and difficult to approach when followed. I never observed them later than the 
early part of September.” Lindermayer observes, “I can state with certainty that this Titmouse 
is a resident in Northern Greece, as I have shot it during the winter, and have obtained eggs 
and young in April and May from the neighbourhood of Athens. It lives a solitary life in pairs, 
and never congregates in larger numbers, like the other Titmice, although in its habits it 
resembles them. It climbs and hops from one branch to the other, continually uttering its call- 
note stzi, stzt, terrerr, hunting carefully after food in the crannies of the bark of the olive-trees ; 
it makes its nest in the holes of these trees, depositing seven or eight eggs of a pure white 
spotted with red. It breeds also in the north of Greece, in Acarnania, and on Parnassus.” 
Messrs. Elwes and Buckley state that “one specimen was shot, and others seen, on the banks of 
the Bistritza, in Macedonia ;” and Dr. Krtiper has procured many specimens in the same district. 
He writes to us as follows:—“ It is not rare in the plains of Greece; and I also found it in Asia 
Minor and Macedonia. On Olympus I met with it, tolerably high up on the mountain. It 
breeds twice in the year, building in holes in trees, sometimes high up and sometimes low down. 
