Wild Birds Useful and Injurious. 
69 
the head glossy-black, with the exception of the cheeks and 
nape of the neck, which are white. The double white bar on 
the wings and the white nape serve to distinguish this species 
from the marsh tit, with which it is frequently confounded. 
Like the two species already described, the coal tit lives princi- 
pally on insects, but in addition feeds on the seeds of the Scotch 
fir and on small earthworms. It is, perhaps, more addicted to 
Fig. 5.— Great Tit, Parus major. 
searching for its food on the ground than the other tits. Its 
nest, composed principally of moss, wool, and rabbit’s fur, is 
usually hidden in some hole in a wall or rotten stump, or even 
in the burrow of a mouse, rat, or mole, close to or beneath the 
surface of the ground. 
The Marsh Tit ( Parus palustris) is the most soberly clad of 
the British tits. It is of the same size as the blue tit, and in 
