WHITE-HEADED LONG-TAILED TIT. 77 



thologists to regard them as natural regions, and 

 not as forming part of one and the same 

 zoo-geographical area. 



When we consider the Tits, we find a great 

 affinity between the forms which inhabit the 

 two regions. Such birds as our Great Tit {Parus 

 major) and our Blue Tit (P. cceruleus) find no near 

 Nearctic allies, nor is our Cole Tit {Parus hritanni- 

 cus) represented in the New World, but our 

 Marsh Tit {Parus dresseri), and especially its con- 

 tinental relatives, P. palustris, and P. horealis, have 

 many representatives in North America, as does 

 also our Crested Tit {Lophophanes cristatus), and our 

 Long-tailed Tits are replaced in America by the 

 tiny Psaltriparus. On the other hand, most of 

 the European Tits find their nearest allies in 

 Eastern species rather than in the Western ones, 

 particularly with those which inhabit the lofty 

 Himalayas, part of which mountain chain probably 

 belongs naturally to the Palsearctic Region. 



The subject of our present article, the White- 

 headed Long-tailed Tit, will always be an object of 

 interest to myself, for the species was the occasion 

 of my first serious contribution to ornitho- 

 logical literature. I was in fact, struck by the 



