BRITISH COAL TITMOUSE 35 
hold, a piece of wood being put into it to protect the bird 
from being struck by the letters. Mr. Graves remarks that, 
on the only two occasions on which he has found Manx 
nests they were in holes in stone walls. 
In 1862 Dr. Crellin writes to Mr. More that the Great 
Titmouse ‘had not been in the island, I think I may safely 
say, more than thirty years, before which time I think it 
was not known here at all.’ I find no further material 
either to confirm or qualify this very interesting statement. 
The Great Tit appears to be a very stationary species. 
The Great Titmouse is common through Great Britain 
and Ireland in general. It is almost unknown in the 
outer Scottish isles. 
PARUS BRITANNICUS, Sharpe and Dresser. 
BRITISH COAL TITMOUSE. 
This species does not seem to have been mentioned as 
Manx until 1896, when the writer detected little parties, 
with Great Tits and Goldcrests, in the fir plantations above 
Laxey, where they continued for at least a great part of the 
winter. In the same winter Mr. Crellin observed some at 
Ballachurry, Andreas, and Mr. Kermode states that he has 
seen it since at Claughbane, near Ramsey, so late in 1901 
as May. Mr. Graves noticed one, the first he had seen in 
Man, in the grounds of Thornton, Douglas, in the company 
of a Blue Tit, on 24th September 1898. Mr. C. H. B. Grant 
noted the species in Lezayre in December 1900. Mr. Leach 
meets with it in increasing numbers in the neighbourhood 
of Douglas (1903). In April 1903 and again in April 1904 
Mr. Graves and I saw a few in the larch plantations above 
Rhenass fall. 
It has not as yet been known to nest, and its numbers 
