43 
Perching Birds. 
THE BLUE TIT. 
( Pams cceruleus.) 
song is sure to attract attention. In winter it frequents the woods in company with 
other Tits, Creepers, and Nuthatches, and is always distinguished from its relatives 
by its larger size and more powerful note. As a nest-builder it is one of the most 
industrious of birds, for it will fill a box or an inverted flower pot of large size with 
moss, and sometimes two or three nests will be found in the same bed of moss, as if the 
bird inhabited the place for year after year and occupied a fresh nest each season. 
The eggs are from five to nine in number, white, with red and grey (underlying) spots. 
This is by far the most plentiful of the British Tits. It is smaller 
than the Great Tit, and is easily distinguished by its blue crown, pale 
green back, blue tail and wing-coverts, white cheeks and eyebrow, 
and yellow under-surface. The Blue Tit is found everywhere throughout the United 
Kingdom, and large numbers migrate every year from the Continent, where it is also 
everywhere distributed, but its range does not extend beyond the Ural mountains. 
Though chiefly subsisting on insect food, the Blue Tit does considerable damage 
in the spring of the year by devouring the buds of fruit-trees, and is as much per- 
secuted as the Bullfinch at this season. At other times, however, it is so entirely an 
insect-feeder that great good must be done by these active little birds, though again 
in the fruit-season it does some damage by pecking holes in the pears and other fruit. 
At the same time the number of insects caught by the Blue Tits ought to be taken 
into consideration, when their family consists of perhaps eight little ones. The nest 
of the Blue Tit is always in the hole of a tree or a wall, and the entrance is some- 
times so tiny that it is difficult to believe that even a Blue Tit can squeeze through 
the aperture. Here in a rough nest of moss and grass, but comfortably lined with 
feathers, the young are reared, and fed entirely on insects. The eggs, from five to 
twelve in number, are white, sprinkled with tiny dots of reddish. 
The Coal Tit ( Pams britannicus). This is entirely a British species, and differs 
from the Coal Tit of the Continent in having an olive-brown back, instead of a blue- 
grey one. Our Coal Tit has a white patch on the nape, in which respect it resembles 
the Great Tit, and, like the latter, it has a black head and white cheeks, but it is a 
very much smaller bird, has no yellow on the under- 
parts, and entirely lacks the black band down the 
centre of the breast and abdomen. It is also a bird 
of somewhat different habits, as far as two species of 
Tits can differ in habits. It is much more shy than 
the Great Tit, and except in winter, when it joins the 
roving parties of Tits and Creepers, is not easy of 
observation. Its plain coloration protects it as 
well as its small size, but where it occurs it is an 
interesting little species to watch, though fit is by no 
means so noisy as the Blue or Great Tits. I was 
very much interested in watching a pair which were The Coal Tit 
