OF SELBORNE. 



181 



cold season. But the grand support of the 

 soft-billed birds in Winter is that infinite 

 profusion of aurelice of the lepidoptera ordo, 

 which is fastened to the twigs of trees and 

 their trunks ; to the pales and walls of gar- 

 dens and buildings ; and is found in every 

 cranny and cleft of rock or rubbish, and 

 even in the ground itself. 



Every species of titmouse Winters with 

 us ; they have what I call a kind of inter- 

 mediate bill between the hard and the soft, 

 between the Linncean genera of fringilla 

 and motacilla. One species alone spends 

 its whole time in the woods and fields, 

 never retreating for succour in the severest 

 seasons to houses and neighbourhoods ; and 

 that is the delicate long-tailed titmouse, 

 which is almost as minute as the golden- 

 crowned wren : but the blue titmouse, or 

 nun (par us cceruleus )^ the cole-mouse ( parus 

 aterj, the great black-headed titmouse 

 (fringillago ^,and the marsh titmouse ( parus 

 palustris ), all resort, at times, to buildings ; 

 and in hard weather particularly. The great 

 titmouse, driven by stress of weather, much 



