368 



A VES— ORDER PASSER/FORMES. 



Fig. 107.— The Beardbd 



Keedling. 

 {Calamophilus biarmicus). 



its allies, Lophaphanes, our crested tit (L. cristatus), and ./Egithalus, our long- 

 tailed tit (^. vagans). Nearly all of these build 

 rough nests in holes of walls or of trees, and lay 

 white eggs spotted with rufous, from five to ten in 

 number. The long-tailed or bottle tit, on the other 

 hand, lays white eggs, seldom with any spots, in an 

 oval nest composed of moss, covered with lichens 

 and lined with feathers. It is one of the most 

 beautiful of all known nests, and is suspended in a 

 tree or bush, generally at no great height from the 

 ground. 



The bearded reedling {Panurus biarmicus) is often 

 called the bearded tit, but it is not a true tit, being 

 a marsh-haunting bird, building a cup-shaped nest 

 at the base of a bunch of reeds. The eggs are white, 

 with reddish dots and streaks. It occurs still in the 

 Norfolk broads in England, and .extends throughout 

 Europe to Central Asia in suitable localities. There 

 is more difference in the colour of the sexes in the 

 genus Panurus than there is in the tits. The males and females are alike in 

 colour in the latter birds, whereas in the reedling the male is a handsome 

 bird, with a grey head and a black moustache, while the female is quite a 

 plain coloured bird. 



The nut-hatches are principally palsearctic and nearctic in their range. No 



species is found in South America, Africa (south of the Sahara), or in the 



Australian region. They are mostly grey-coloured birds, 



The Nut-Hatches, with conspicuous white spots near the end of the tail-feathers, 



— Family In those parts of the world where true nut-hatches do not 



Sitlidm. occur, their places are taken by birds of similar appearance 



and habits, though of brighter coloration. Thus, in the 



Himalayas south to the Burmese provinces and the Malayan sub-region 



occurs the genus Dendrositta, represented far away 



in Madagascar by Uypositta, and in Australia and 



New Guinea by Sitella. 



The true nut-hatches (Sifta), of which our common 

 nut-hatch is the type, are birds with the appearance 

 of a small woodpecker, and they climb up trees 

 with the same facility, using their wedge-shaped 

 bill to prize off pieces of bark to feed on the insects 

 which tlieir prowess discovers. They have, however, 

 soft-plumaged tails, not spiny tails like the wood- 

 peckers and creepers, but they run along boughs 

 exactly as these birds do, with the exception that 

 nut-hatches often run down a trunk, which the other 

 birds above-mentioned do not do. 



The gold-crests form a little family of northern 



birds, intermediate between the tits and warblers, 



catching tiny insects like both of 



these, but differing from them in 



their structure and mode of nidification. They are very 

 tiny creatures, our common gold-crest {Regulus regvlns) 

 being the smallest of our native birds. Gold-crests are 



Fig. 108.— TnE Commos 

 NuT-HA.xcH(Si(toc-"- ■"' 



The Gold-Crests. 

 — Family 

 Segulidce. 



