AZURE TIT. 
11 
adjacent parts of the Russian dominions, extending in 
winter through the greatest part of European Russia, 
being found at St. Petersburg, as well as on the banks 
of the Wolga, and sometimes ranging from thence into 
Poland and Prussia. According to<* Naumann, it is 
more frequently found in Sweden than in the north of 
Germany. An occasional specimen may he sometimes 
found in Saxony, or even in Austria, but it does not 
occur further to the south or west. 
In the beginning of autumn it migrates into warmer 
latitudes, as in winter or early spring, an occasional 
pair, or single bird only, will be found in the north- 
west. 
Naumann, who is almost the only author from whom 
we can glean anything about the habits of this 
bird, says that it does not appear to aftect trees with 
pointed leaves, like the fir or pine, preferring willow 
bushes in meadows by the side of rivers and watery 
places. In winter they are found more plentifully in 
the neighbourhood of houses, and come even into 
towns. It is a lively, agile, and fearless bird, like the 
rest of its tribe, very skilful in climbing, and is seen, 
like the Blue Tit, clinging to boughs and branches. 
It is, however, readily distinguished from the other 
allied Tits by its longer tail. 
Bechstein compares its call-note to that of the House 
Sparrow, hut it is softer. 
It lives on insects and their eggs, larva3, and pupae, 
which it diligently picks out from the open crevices 
of bark, and to get at which, like the Blue Tit, it 
destroys many buds, blossoms, and leaves. It is also 
fond of seeds and the kernels of nuts, upon which it 
may be seen hammering with its beak, having carefully 
fixed the object in a chink of the tree. 
