J. A. HARVIE-BROWN ON MARSH TIT IN SCOTLAND. 
97 
VI 1 . — The Marsh Tit in Scotland/^ 
By J. A. Harvie-Brown, P\R.S.E., F.Z.S. 
(Read 8th Nov., 1894.) 
Out of a very large series of notes received from all parts of 
Scotland we have been able, we believe, to locate, with fair exac¬ 
titude, the nesting distribution of the Marsh Tit, and thereby to 
arrive at a certain class of conclusions which are not altogether 
without interest from distributional and migrational points of view. 
Our friend, Mr. Wm. Evans, has before given us his experiences 
in connection with his discovering the Marsh Tit nesting in Upper 
Strathspey in a most interesting paper in the Annals of Scottish 
Natural History. We were inclined at first to think when the Marsh 
Tit was found in Strathspey that the individuals observed would pro¬ 
bably prove to be migrants from Scandinavia. This belief, of course, 
Mr. Evans promptly put out of court by his afterwards finding the nests 
in May. We still, however, adhere to the belief that this species is 
as yet of quite local distribution, although it will no doubt increase 
in the course of time. Its very local distribution, as at present 
known, in Scotland tends to strengthen our belief. We have known 
it ourselves as long ago as 1859 or i860 as a winter visitor to 
the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, and we knew of its nesting at an 
even earlier date from MacGillivray, on the authority of Mr. Weir. 
But we think, considering that so much attention has been given to 
our British and Scottish birds since those days, that the distribution 
of the Marsh Tit, as knoivn at present, cannot be very far removed 
from the facts. We also consider that distribution is such a moving 
quantity from year to year that what we do know is scarcely equal 
to keeping pace with it in the cases of many species. Want of obser¬ 
vation, so often pleaded as the cause of want of knowledge, will 
not, we consider, serve as an excuse in this case however, even 
though it be granted that the species is of retiring habits and in¬ 
conspicuous. However that may be, we have been at some pains 
to collect data, which, whether negative or positive, have been care¬ 
fully sifted. 
Mr. Evans has epitomised the distribution, which we may give 
again. St. John for Moray, in ivinter (Natural History and Sport in 
Moray, Ed. 1882, p. 16). A. G. More, quoting MacGillivray for 
Fife (on the Distribution of Birds in Great Britain in the Nesting 
Season, Ibis, 1865), Perthshire, and Aberdeenshire, and, on the 
authority of Mr. Wm. Dunbar, “as far north as Inverness.” Then 
* This paper is confessedly incomplete, but is offered in the hope that the more 
exact distribution may be worked out north of Forth and Clyde. 
G 
