45 
Perching Birds. 
separate race of our ordinary Marsh Tit, and Mr. Hartert (Bull. Brit. Orn. Club, vii . 
p. iv.), gives the differences as follows : — The crown is less glossy and more of a 
brownish black, the flanks are strongly marked with rufous, and the proportions of 
the bill, wings and tail are slightly different. The call-note also is not the same,, 
and its habitat is confined to dark, shadowy and swampy places. The same form 
is said by Mr. Kleinschmidt, who first drew Mr. Hartert’s attention to the occurrence 
of P . salicaritis in England, to be found in Germany. 
The Crested Tit (Lophophanes cristatus). Members of the genus Lophophaties 
are distinguished by their pointed crest, which forms an evident tuft. The genus is 
more strongly represented in the New World than in the Old, but there are a few 
species in the Himalaya Mountains. Otherwise the Crested Tit of Great Britain 
is the characteristic Palasarctic representative of the genus, and is found over the 
greater part of Western Europe, wherever pine-forests occur, extending east to the 
Volga, but not occurring in Greece or Italy below the line of the Alps. 
The species is distinguished by its sober olive-brown colour, white face, black 
throat joining the black of the nape, and long crest of black, white-edged feathers, 
the crown itself being black. It is at the present time only found within a certain 
limited area in Scotland, but has occurred in many of the English counties and in 
Ireland. The Crested Tit seems to be everywhere a bird of the pine-forests, where 
it searches for its insect food after the manner of a Creeper, and, according to Mr. 
Seebohm, it never comes down to the ground, like other Tits sometimes do. The nest is 
roughly made of dry grass and moss, and is placed in the hole of a tree or in the 
foundations of Crow’s, Magpie’s, or even Squirrel’s nests. The eggs are from four 
to seven in number, white, with very distinct spots of red and purplish-red. 
The British Long-Tailed Tit (/Egithalus vagans). The members of this 
genus have a very long tail, which 
exceeds the wing in length, thus differ- 
ing from all the other British Paridm. 
The nest of the Long-Tailed Tits, too, 
is quite different from those of the 
rest of the family, being a moss- 
built, domed structure, placed in the 
open, and not in the hole of a wall 
or tree. 
Our Long-tailed Tit may almost be 
considered a peculiar British species. 
Like the Coal Tit, it is easily recog- 
nisable from its Continental repre- 
sentative, as it has only the centre 
of the crown white, with a broad 
lateral stripe of black on each side of it, 
The White-Headed Long-Tailed Tit 
The British Long-Tailed Tit 
