THE GREAT TIT. 
131 
parts dusky black, and not so strongly marked as in the 
adults. 
Note. — The Great Tit is the largest of the family in England, and is 
easily distinguished by the black head and the black line which parts the 
centre of the yellow breast. 
Range in Great Britain. — May be considered a constant resi- 
dent in all three kingdoms, though it becomes rarer in the 
north of Scotland, and is only an accidental visitor to certain 
islands of the north, such as the Isle of Skye and the Shet- 
lands. 
Range outside the British Islands.-— The Great Tit is distributed 
over Europe, and extends eastward through Asia across to the 
Pacific Ocean, being found in Palestine, Persia, and Central 
Asia, but does not occur in any part of the Indian Region, being 
replaced by allied forms in the Himalayas, in China, and the 
Japanese Islands. Its , northern most range is the Arctic Circle 
in lat. 66 * 4 °, and it gradually decreases towards the east. Thus 
Mr. Seebohm describes its occurrence in the valley of the 
Yenesei up to lat 58°, and on the Pacific coast the most nor- 
therly point known is Middendorff’s record of 55°. 
Habits. — The Great Tit is a very cheery bird, and is found in 
all kinds of places, visiting along with the Blue Tit even the 
parks in the centre of London. It can at any time be enticed 
into gardens and the neighbourhood of houses, by the simple 
expedient of suspending some morsels of fat, or little bladders 
of lard, and it is while clinging to these, in every imaginable 
attitude, that the graceful motions of this active little bird can 
best be studied. During the breeding season it is rather shy, and 
hoes its best to escape observation, but in the winter it becomes 
much more in evidence, and its bright colours render it a 
somewhat conspicuous object as it frequents the woods or the 
mshes in the neighbourhood of a house. Even in winter it is 
otten found in pairs flying about in the undergrowth of the 
woods, but it not unfrequently joins in a merry party of other 
fits, Creepers, and Nuthatches as they course through the 
woods on a fine winter’s day. This habit of assembling is not 
confined to Tits in this country, for we remember on one oc- 
casion m the pine-woods of Simla, where there was generally 
silence and an absence of bird-life, how pleasing it was to 
