GREAT TIT. 463 



PARUS MAJOR. 

 GREAT TIT. 



(Plate 9.) 



Parus major, Briss. Oi-n. iii. p. 539 (1760) ; Linn. Syst. Kat. i. p. 341 (1766) ; et 

 auctorum plurimorum — Latham, Omelm, Bechstein, Naumann, Temminck, 

 Gray, Bonaparte, Dcr/land, Gerbe, Neioton, Dresser, ^-c. 



Pai'us friugillago, Pall. Zooyr. Rosso-Asiat. i. p. 555 (1820). 



Parus robustus, Brehm, Voy. Deutschl, p. 401 (1831). 



The Great Tit, one of the largest species of its genus, is a common bird 

 throughout the wooded portions of Great Britain, occasionally straggling 

 as far north as the Shetlands, but appearing never to visit the Outer 

 Hebrides. Gray states that in Scotland it becomes less frequent north of 

 Argyllshire. It is generally distributed throughout Ireland in suitable 

 localities. 



The Great Tit appears to be found throughout the Palasarctic region, 

 from the British Islands to the Pacific. In Norway, under the influence 

 of the gulf-stream, it ranges as far north as the arctic circle (lat. 66^°) . 

 In West Russia it lias not been recorded north of lat. 64°. In the valley 

 of the Obb, Pinsch and Brehm did not observe it north of lat. 62° ; whilst 

 in the valley of the Yenesay I did not find it north of lat. 58°. Ou the 

 Pacific coast, Middendorff did not obtain it further north than lat. 55°. It 

 extends in the west as far south as the Canary Islands, Algeria, Palestine, 

 and Persia, and in the east as far as North Turkestan and the Amoor. In 

 Mongolia, China, and Japan its place is taken by a nearly allied but 

 apparently quite distinct species, P. minor, which is on an average a 

 slightly smaller bird, and has the yellow of the underparts replaced by 

 huffish white. In examples from South China the upper back is greyer ; 

 and every intermediate form between P. minor and P. cinercus of the plains 

 of India occurs there, in which latter species, in the adult bird, all traces 

 of green have disappeared from the back, leaving it slate-grey. In the 

 mountains of India, Ceylon, and Java a large race of P. cinereus occurs, 

 P atriceps, in which the black on the belly and centre tail-feathers is 

 somewhat more developed. In Turkestan a pale form of P. atriceps occurs, 

 P. bokarensis, differing also in having the tail considerably more rounded. 

 All these tropical and semitropical forms appear to be specifically distinct 

 from P. major, but are probably only subspecifically distinct from each 

 other. The most remarkable fact connected with the geographical distribu- 

 tion of the Great Tit is that, whilst its range differs from those of the Blue 

 Tit and the Crested Tit, which are confined to Europe, and agrees with 



