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ALLEN’S NATURALIST’S LIBRARY. 
attracted to the vicinity of houses by hanging up a bone or a 
piece of fat. Mr. Howard Saunders says that this little bird 
prises off the scales of the rough bark of a Scotch fir in the 
pursuit of its insect food. 
Nest. — Apparently a neater construction than that of most 
Tits, though composed of the same materials, viz., moss, wool, 
and hair. A willow-tree is often selected for its home, and the 
nest is not, as a rule, far from the ground. In a decayed tree it 
will often excavate its own hole, which is as neatly rounded as 
that of a Woodpecker, and there is frequently a second exit from 
the nest. The entrance hole is always remarkably small, as 
may be imagined from the kindly way in which the bird takes 
to a human skull when the latter is put up into a tree for its 
benefit, as we have known done by our friends, ffm, Birket 
Foster and Bryan Hook ; the occ'pital foramen, the hole at 
the back of the skull, forms the entrance to this strange abode, 
and the skull being turned upside down, the nest of the Tit is 
amply sheltered by the palate of the deceased. 
Eggs. — From five to eight in number. Ground-colour white, 
like china, rather thickly spotted with red and reddish-brown, 
the overlying spots being the brighter. Sometimes the egg is 
dotted all over with rufous, but very often the spots are col- 
lected at the larger end. Axis, o'6-o'65 inch; diarn., o - 45-o'5. 
THE CRESTED TITS. GENUS LOPHOPHANES. 
Lophophanes, Kaup., Natiirl. Syst, p. 92 (1829). 
Type, L. cristcitus (Linn.). 
The type-species of this genus, L. cristatus, shows such a 
preponderance of crest over the ordinary members of the genus 
Parus , that it can scarcely be said to belong properly to the 
latter genus, and the Crested Tit is only one of many large 
tufted-species which are found over the northern parts of 
Europe and of the New World. In the latter, they range as far 
south as Mexico, and in the Old World outside Europe there are 
several species in the Himalayan chain. 
THE CRESTED TIT. LOPHOPHANES CRISTATUS. 
Parus cristatus, Linn., Syst. Nat., i., p. 340 (1766); Macg., Br. 
B., ii., p. 450 (1839); Newt. ed. Yarr., i., p. 499 (1874,); 
