CRESTED TIT. 483 



distinguishing feature of the Arcachon winters the white edges to the black 

 feathers of the head of the Crested Tit are generally very conspicuous 

 during flight ; and often enough when the little bird is hanging under a 

 branch of a lofty pine, the outline of its erected crest is easy to see against 

 the sky. But the surest way of detecting its presence is to listen for its 

 note. Its call-note is a not very loud si, si, si, which seems to be common 

 to many of the Tits ; but this is often followed hy a spluttering note diffi- 

 cult to express 'on paper, which, as far as I know, is peculiar to the Crested 

 Tit. It is a lame attempt at a trill, a sort of phir, re, re, re, ree. The pine 

 trees in the Arcachon forest are tapped for their resin. Three or four 

 longitudinal scores are made on the trunks ; and these are lengthened as 

 they dry up until they reach a considerable height from the ground. When 

 the tree gets old the weather rots the part where the bark has been re- 

 moved, and the trunk swells out and cracks, and all kinds of convenient 

 nooks and crannies are formed, where Tits and other birds who like such 

 situations for their nests can breed. Some of these trees in the old forest 

 of La Teste attain a diameter of four, and even five feet ; and occasionally 

 one comes across a fine old oak. The Crested Tits seem, however, to prefer 

 the pines ; and although the Great and the Coal Tits are very fond of 

 searching for insects on the ground amongst the fallen oak-leaves, I ha^e 

 never seen the Crested Tit on the ground. In the pine-forosts of Pome- 

 rania and of the Alps I found this bird equally common. 



In Scotland the haunt of the Crested Tit is the pine-woods, and more 

 rarely the birch-plantations. The breeding-season of the bird, both in 

 Scotland and in Pomerania, commences about the middle of April ; and the 

 eggs are laid by the first week in May. Russow says that in the Russian 

 Baltic Provinces it often has a second brood early in June. 



The Crested Tit generally builds its nest in a hole in a tree, and usually 

 at no very great height from the ground ; but in forests where there are 

 not many old trees, and suitable holes are not easily found, it will often 

 construct its nest in the foundations of large nests (those of birds of prey. 

 Crows, &c.), or it lays its eggs in the forsaken nests of the Magpie, 

 the Crow, or the Squirrel, or even of the Wren. More than one orni- 

 thologist has maintained that it builds a nest of its own with a hole in the 

 side, like that of the Wren. It has been known to breed in the little 

 wooden boxes which the Germans are so fond of putting up for the accom- 

 modation of their favourites the Starlings ; and it is said often to hollow 

 out a hole for itself in decayed trees and old half-rotten pallisades. 



The nest is put together in a somewhat slovenly fashion, and made of 

 dry grass, moss, wool, feathers, and very often the fur of the " blue hare " 

 thickly felted together. The eggs of the Crested Tit are from four to six 

 or seven in number, and differ considerably in the amount and distribution 

 of the markings. They are pure white in ground-colour, some specimens 



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