LIEUT.-COL. DUTHIE ON BRITISH ABODE OF CRESTED TITMOUSE. 153 
black and white feathers. Their call-note, when once learnt, is a sure 
sign of recognition. 
The nest is a pad of the softest materials, composed almost 
entirely of rabbit or other fur and a few feathers, with a little moss 
as a foundation. We found other nests during our stay in the forest 
in similar kinds of stumps, the nesting hole being generally within 
a few feet of the ground; the birds were sitting hard, looking at us 
with fierce little eyes, but we had no need to disturb them, and left 
them to bring up their brood in peace. The eggs are of the regular 
Titmouse type, white with small red spots. 
The Crested Tits are of a hardy nature, like all their tribe. We 
have found them in Switzerland in the month of March at a height of 
3000 feet above the sea, when the ground was held tight in the icy 
grip of winter, and the boughs of the spruce firs, which attain such 
noble proportions in those regions, were bending under their weight 
of snow. They are fairly distributed over the continent of Europe, 
being equally at home in the pine forests of Norway and Sweden, as 
in the oak woods and cork groves of Spain and Southern France, and 
it seems strange that the little colony established in Scotland does 
not spread beyond the very limited area which it at present occupies. 
Cultivation, artificial draining, and reclamation of waste lands have 
driven away many birds, such as the Bustard, the Bittern, and the 
Black Tern, which were formerly habitual breeders in our Islands, into 
more and more isolated districts, until, their last abiding place being 
intruded upon, extermination has ensued. Other species are now pass¬ 
ing through the same process; the Kentish Plover is almost extinct as 
a British nesting bird, and the Bearded Titmouse (Panurus biarmiens 
a bird which belongs to a different family from the subject of this paper, 
is probably now behind his last entrenchment in the reeds of the 
Norfolk broads. The causes which have led to the banishment of these 
birds do not apply in the case of the Crested Tits, for the destruction 
of old forests, which perhaps at one time caused a shrinkage in their 
area of distribution, has been arrested, and in their present quarters 
they are practically unmolested, and should be increasing; why, then, 
do they not enlarge their sphere ? There is plenty of well timbered 
land outside their isolated domain; their food is much the same as 
that taken by such cosmopolitans as the Cole Titmouse, Goldcrest 
and Tree Creeper, with which they associate in mutual foraging ex¬ 
peditions; they do not restrict themselves to pine trees, nor are they 
dependent on old decayed stumps for their nesting sites, one nest 
having been found in an iron post, and it is well known that the 
deserted nests of Crows, Magpies, and Squirrels are sometimes used 
by the Crested Tits for breeding purposes. It is possible that the old 
British stock may be dying out for want of new blood, but whatever 
