THE GREAT TIT. 
201 
At Aberarder, Inverness-shire, I observed this species to be 
numerous in September, 1842, particularly in Dunmaglass wood, 
composed chiefly of larch and Scotch fir : about the middle of the 
month some were heard singing. 
The Fire-crested Regulus ( R . ignicapillus ) is stated to have 
been observed in a garden at Tralee, but without further information, 
cannot be included in the Irish Fauna. 
THE GREAT TIT.* 
Parus major, Linn. 
Is common and resident. 
Frequenting town plantations as well as those in the country. 
I have observed it also in districts destitute of trees, and where 
hawthorn hedges afforded the only shelter. Its sawing song, 
is commenced very early ; in three successive years this was heard 
about Belfast on the 5th of January; 23rd and 24th of Dec.; 
and towards the end of January was once heard when ice, an 
inch in thickness, covered the ponds near the songster's station. 
Some time after the breeding season, as in September, the sawing 
is again commonly heard. A pair of these birds along with two 
blue titmice daily, during a winter, visited the window-sill of a 
friend's house in the country t at a particular hour, where crumbs 
of bread were laid for them. In the following winter the latter 
species only renewed its visits, which were daily, until the severe 
weather in the middle of February, when a pair of great titmice, 
presumed to be the same, re-appeared, and continued to come as 
in the former season. 
On looking to the food contained in three of the P. major 
killed in February and March, it was found to be seeds, and small 
coleopterous insects and larvse. In a friend's garden near Belfast, 
* Titmouse is the name commonly applied to all the British species of the genus 
Parus. 
f They are occasionally seen on the window-sills of our house in Belfast, with- 
out being tempted by food ; but the house is situated in a square partially planted with 
trees and shrubs, and before it is a narrow belt of shrubbery. 
