THE COAL-TITS. 
1 37 
tinent to the east coast. We have seen some specimens killed 
in summer in the British Islands which were scarcely to be told 
hom the grey-backed Coal-Tits of the Continent, and Mr. 
Howard Saunders doubts the migration of the true P. alcr to 
our shores, and believes that we have grey-backed as well as 
olive-backed individuals in our islands. We have carefully 
looked through the series of Coal-Tits in the British Museum, 
and on comparing the series of true P. alcr with a number of 
P. britannicus, we find no difficulty in recognising them at any 
season of the year. British birds occasionally, during the 
breeding season, when the plumage gets worn, lose somewhat 
of their olive-brown dress, which is so distinct in winter, and 
are greyer than at the latter season, but they never attain the 
clear slaty-blue colour of their continental relatives, and we re- 
iterate the opinion which we held in 1872, when we first 
described the British bird as distinct, that the two forms are 
well worthy of recognition. 
Range outside the British Islands. — Generally distributed in 
Europe, but replaced in Algeria by Petrus ledouci , and in Cyprus 
by P. Cypriotes. It is found as high north as 65° N. lat. in Scan- 
dinavia, and extends throughout Europe and Northern Asia, 
the form of Eastern Siberia and Japan having a slightly longer 
crest and being distinguished as P. pekinensis. In the Hima- 
layas several representative species of Coal-Tits are found. 
Habits. — Similar to those of P. britannicus. 
Nest. — Similar to that of P. britannicus. 
Eggs. — Six to ten in number, scarcely distinguishable from 
those of the Blue Tit ; white, spotted with rufous in exactly 
the same way as the eggs of the latter bird, but the red mark- 
ings on some of the eggs occasionally very faint, and, in most 
clutches, showing two shades of rufous. Axis, o' 6 -o'’j inch; 
diam, o‘5. 
THE COAL-TIT. PARUS BRITANNICUS. 
(Plait XV/., Fig. I.) 
Pams ater (nec. L.), Macg., Br. B., ii., p. 440 (1839); Newt, 
ed. Yarr., i,, p. 489 (1874 pt.) ; Gadow, Cat. B. Brit. 
Mus., viii., p. 40 (1883 pt.) ; Lilford, Col. Fig. Brit. B., 
pt. iv. (1887); Saunders, Man., p. 97 (1889, pt.). 
