the school-boy, who, if not deterred by the ominous sounds, often rues his temerity and draws back his hand with more celerity than he stretched it forth, well pecked by the irritated matron. Hence he calls it Billy Biter:' by the way Montagu gives Willow Biter' as one of its names. The latter name does not convey much meaning to any one acquainted with the habits of the bird; the former does may not Montagu have heard it imperfectly?

The gardener, who sees this little bird busy about the buds, likes it not, and in some parishes a reward has been set upon its head. Mr. Knapp, in his interesting Journal of a Naturalist, notices such a case where the stimulus appears to have operated to some purpose against these innocent little birds, for one item passed in the churchwardens' account was for seventeen dozen of Tomtits' heads.' They may, now and then, knock off a bud in their busy search for insects; but the great good they do in ridding the plants of these, far outweighs any casual harm that may result from their industry.

The song of the Tomtit has but little variety: the vivacity of the bird seems however to have found favour for its song with our neighbours, for the Portraits d'Oyseaux notices it with applause :

L'Esté es bois la mesange bleue est,
Et nous vient voir en Hyver et Autonne,
Le doux chanter d'icelle plaisir donne
A tout esprit, à qui l'escouter plaist.'

We proceed to illustrate the present article by the less familiar Long-tailed Titmouse, Bearded Titmouse, and Penduline Titmouse.

Long-tailed Titmouse. Description.-Male.-Head, neck, throat, and breast pure white; upper part and centre of the back, rump, and the six middle tail-feathers deep black; scapulars reddish; belly, sides, and abdomen reddish white; quills black greater wing-coverts bordered with pure white; lateral tail-feathers white on their external barbs and at their end; tail very long and wedge-shaped. Length five inches seven or eight lines.

Female.-A large black band above the eyes, which is prolonged upon the nape, and proceeds to unite itself with the black of the upper part of the back. Young-Small black spots on the cheeks and brown spots on the breast: black of the back not so decided. (Temm.)

N.B. Mr. Gould remarks that the female does not differ from the male in colouring, and in the Birds of Europe both are represented with the black band above the eyes.

This is the Pendolino, Paronzino, Codibugnolo, and Paglia in culo of the Italians; Mésange à la longue queue and Perd sa queue of the French; Langschwänzige Meise, Schwanzmeise, and Belzmeise Pfannenstiel of the Germans; Staartmees of the Netherlanders; Alhtita of the Swedes; Jenaga of the Japanese; Bottle Tit, Bottle Tom, Long-tailed Farmer, Long-tail Mag, Long-tail Pie, Poke Pudding, Huckmuck, and Mum-ruffin, of the modern British; and Y Benloyn gnyffonhir of the antient British.

Geographical Distribution.-Siberia, Russia, Japan. The whole of Europe. England, Scotland (near Edinburgh at least), and Ireland.

Habits, Food, &c.-Insects, their larvæ and eggs, form the food of these pretty little birds. When White says that the Long-tailed Titmouse never retreats for succour in the severest seasons to houses and their neighbourhood, he must not be supposed to mean that the bird avoids the haunts of men. We have seen in a nursery-garden in Middlesex a whole family of them within a few yards of the nursery-man's cottage, and close to his greenhouse, which visitors were constantly entering, and we have found its exquisitely wrought nest in a Silver Fir about eight feet high, in a pleasure-ground in the same county, little more than a hundred yards from the house. Pennant well describes its appearance in flight when, after stating that the young follow the parents the whole winter, he says, from the slimness of their bodies, and great length of tail, they appear, while flying, like so many darts cutting the air. They are often seen passing through our gardens, going progressively from tree to tree, as if on their road to some other place, never making any halt.' Yarrell is equally happy in describing the nest and manners of this interesting little bird. The nest of this species,' says he, is another example of ingenious con

Nest of Long-tailed Titmouse.

struction, combining beauty of appearance with security and warmth. In shape it is nearly oval, with one small hole in the upper part of the side by which the bird enters. I have never seen more than one hole. The outside of this nest sparkles with silver-coloured lichens adhering to a firm texture of moss and wool, the inside profusely lined with soft feathers. The nest is generally placed in the middle of a thick bush, and so firmly fixed, that it is mostly found necessary to cut out the portion natural appearance and form of the nest. In this species, of the bush containing it, if desirous of preserving the the female is known to be the nest-maker, and to have her habitation. In this she deposits from ten to twelve been occupied for a fortnight to three weeks in completing eggs; but a larger number are occasionally found: they are small and white, with a few pale red specks, frequently quite plain, measuring seven lines in length, and five lines in breadth. The young family of the year keep company with the parent birds during their first autumn and winter, and generally crowd close together on the same branch at roosting-time, looking, when thus huddled up, like a shapeless lump of feathers only. These birds have several notes, on the sound of which they assemble and keep together; one of these call-notes is soft and scarcely

Long-tailed Titmouse, Male and Female (Gould.)

andible; a second is a louder chirp or twitter, and a third is of a hoarser kind.'

In the Portraits d'Oyseaux the qualities of this species are thus summed up :

Ceste Mesange est à la longue quene Oyseau petit, comme est le Roytelet: Du demeurant, inconstant, et follet,

Par son hault chiant sa voix est bien cogneue.' The Bearded Titmouse. Description.-Male.-Black between the bill and the eye, and these black feathers are very long and prolonged on each side on the lateral part of the neck; head and occiput bluish ash; throat and front of the neck pure white, which blends on the breast and the middle of the belly into a rosy hue; nape, back, rump, feathers of the middle of the tail and sides fine rust-colour; great coverts of the wings deep black, bordered with deep rusty on the external barb, and reddish white on the internal barb; quills bordered with white; feathers of the under part of the tail deep black; lateral tail-feathers bordered and terminated with grey; tail long, much graduated; bill and iris fine yellow. Length 6 inches and 2 or 3 lines.

Female. No black moustaches; throat and front of the neck tarnished white; upper parts of the head and body rusty, shaded with brown; on the middle of the back some longitudinal black spots; under tail-coverts bright rusty.

Young at their leaving the nest, and before their first moult, with nearly the whole of the plumage of very bright reddish; a good deal of black on the external barbs of the quills and tail-feathers; on the middle of the back a very large space of deep black. After the first moult nothing of the deep black of the back remains but some longitudinal spots.

Varieties.-More or less marked with white or whitish; the colours of the plumage often feebly developed. (Temm.) This is the Mésange Barbue ou Moustache of the French; Bartmeise of the Germans; Least Butcher-Bird of Edwards; Reed Pheasant (provincial) of the modern British, and Y Barfog of the Welsh.

N.B. M. Temminck remarks that the Zahnschäblige Bartmeise of Brehm is a species or subspecies founded only on individuals which have been long caged, such as may be seen in the Dutch markets, where numbers are sold. Some of these captives come to London, where they inay be bought for some four or five shillings a pair. The iris and bill in the living bird are of a delicate orangecolour.

Geographical Distribution.-The north of Europe, England, Sweden; Asia, on the shores of the Caspian Sea; nowhere so abundant as in Holland; accidentally, on passage, in France. (Temm.) In the third part of the second edition of his Manuel, M. Temminck says, that in Italy it is as common in the marshes of Ostia, as in those of Holland near Amsterdam. As to Sweden, Pennant also states that it is rarely found there; but neither Müller, Brisson, nor Nilsson notices it in that locality. Mr. Yarrell gives the best summary known to us of the recorded distribution of the species in the British Islands :- South and west of London the Bearded Tit has been found in Surrey about some ponds near Godalming; in Sussex near Winchelsea; and on the banks of the Thames from London upwards as far as Oxford. Pennant says it has been taken near Gloucester. In Cornwall, as I learn from Mr. Rodd, it is considered very rare; a single specimen was obtained in the neighbourhood of Helston, which is now in the collection made by the late Humphrey Grylls, Esq. It is not included in the catalogue of the Birds of Shropshire and North Wales, lately published in the "Annals of Natural History" by my friend Mr. Thomas Eyton; but is said to have been taken in Lancashire; and a single specimen is recorded as Irish by Mr. Thompson, on the authority of Mr. W. S. Wall, a bird-preserver in Dublin, which example was received from the banks of the Shannon. Eastward from London the Bearded Tit inhabits the various reed-beds on the banks of the Thames, both in Kent and Essex. It is found also in Cambridgeshire, Suffolk, Norfolk, and Lincolnshire, but has not been traced in this country north of the Humber.'

Habits, Food, &c.-Dr. Leach had observed the fondness of this species for marshy and reedy spots, the shape of its open cup-shaped nest placed on the ground, and the nature of its food-seeds, insects and their larvae, and small

shelled snails. He had also remarked that the sides of the stomach in this bird were muscular and much thickened, forming a gizzard which the true tits do not possess ; and that this structure of the stomach afforded the power of breaking down the shells of the testaceous mollusks-Succinea amphibia and Pupa muscorum-many of which had been found comminuted therein. Still, from the comparative rarity of this bird in Britain, and the impervious nature of its haunts, its habits were comparatively little known. Mr. Hoy and Mr. Dykes have supplied much interesting information on this head.

The former states that the Bearded Tit begins building towards the end of April, and that the nest is composed on the outside of dead leaves of the reed and sedge, intermixed with a few pieces of grass, and lined with the top of the reed. He describes it as generally placed in a tuft of coarse grass or rushes near the ground, on the margin of the dikes, in the fens; and sometimes as fixed among the reeds that are broken down, but never suspended between the stems. Their food, he says, is principally the seed of the reed, and so intent were they on their search for it, that he had taken them with a bird-limed twig attached to a fishing-rod. When alarmed by any sudden noise, or the passing of a hawk, they uttered their shrill musical notes, and concealed themselves among the thick bottoms of the reeds, but they soon resumed their station, climbing the upright stems with the greatest facility.

Mr. Dykes had an opportunity of examining three specimens, and he found their crops completely filled with the Succinea amphibia in a perfect state, the shells unbroken and singularly closely packed together. The crop of one, not larger than a hazel nut, contained twenty Succineæ, some of them of a good size, and four Pupa muscorum, with the shells also entire. The stomach was full of small fragments of shell, in a greater or less degree of decomposition. Numerous sharp angular fragments of quartz which had been swallowed had with the action of the stomach effected the comminution of the shells.

Two nests obtained by Mr. Yarrell from the parish of Horsey, were sustained only an inch or two above the ground by the strength of the stems of the coarse grass on which they were fixed. Each was composed entirely of dried bents, the finer ones forming the lining; others increasing in substance made up the exterior. Mr. Yarrell states the number of eggs at from four to six, rather smaller than those of the Great Titmouse, and less pointed; eight lines and a half long by six lines and a half in breadth, white, and sparingly marked with pale red lines or scratches. (British Birds.)

keesk shees of the Cree Indians; and Mésange of the Canadian voyageurs: and they observe that its loose plumage, like that of the Canadian jay, is well qualified for its protection in the severe arctic winters. According to Nuttall, Chicadee' is the familiar name for this bird. Geographical Distribution. Supposing the bird to be a distinct species. The whole width of the American continent, from lat. 65° to the southern districts of the United States, throughout the year: one of the most common birds in the fur-countries, a small family inhabiting almost every thicket. (Fauna Boreali-Americana.) In winter resident around Hudson's Bay, and has been met with at 62° on the north-west coast. Difficult to say in what part of the United States it is most common, so generally and equally has it colonized the temperate parts. In winter abundant in all the forests of the southern states to Florida, and probably extending its visits into Mexico. (Nuttall.)

Habits, Food, &c. The author last quoted gives a graphic description of the manners of this titmouse, which would suffer by an attempt to lay it before the reader in any other terms than his own.

In all these countries,' says the observing author of the Manual of the Ornithology of the United States and of Canada, in autumn families of them are seen chattering and roving through the woods, busily engaged in gleaning their multifarious food, along with the preceding species (Parus bicolor), Nuthatches, and Creepers, the whole forming a busy, active, and noisy group, whose manners, food, and habits bring them together in a common pursuit. Their diet varies with the season; for besides insects, their larvæ and eggs, of which they are more particularly fond, in the month of September they leave the woods and assemble familiarly in our orchards and gardens, and even enter the thronging cities in quest of that support which their native forests now deny them. Large seeds of many kinds, particularly those which are oily, as the sun-flower, and pine, and spruce-kernels, are now sought after. These seeds, in the usual manner of the genus, are seized in the claws and held against the branch until picked open by the bill to obtain their contents. Fat of various kinds is also greedily eaten, and they regularly watch the retreat of the hog-killers, in the country, to glean up the fragments of meat which adhere to the places where the carcasses have been suspended. At times they feed upon the wax of the candle-berry myrtle (Myrica cerifera); they likewise pick up crumbs near the houses, and search the weather-boards and even the window-sills familiarly for their lurking prey, and are particularly fond of spiders and the eggs of destructive moths, especially those of the canker-worm, which they greedily destroy in all its stages of existence. It is said that they sometimes attack their own species when the individual is sickly, and aim their blows at the skull with a view to eat the brain; but this barbarity I have never witnessed. In winter, when satisfied, they will descend to the snow-bank beneath, and quench their thirst by swallowing small pieces; in this way, their various and frugal meal is always easily supplied; and hardy, and warmly clad in light and very downy feathers, they suffer very little inconvenience from the inclemency of the seasons. Indeed in the winter, or about the close of October, they at times appear so enlivened as already to show their amorous attachment, like our domestic cock, the male approaching his mate with fluttering and vibrating wings; and in the spring season the males have obstinate engagements, darting after each other with great velocity and anger. Their roost, I suspect, is in the hollows of decayed trees, where they also breed, laying their eggs merely in the dry rotten wood, without any attempt at a nest; these are from 6 to 12 in number, white with specks of brown-red. They begin to lay about the middle or close of April, and though they commonly make use of natural or deserted holes of the woodpecker, yet at times they are said to excavate a cavity for themselves with much labour. The first brood take wing about the 7th or 10th of June, and they have sometimes a second towards the end of July. The young, as soon as fledged, have all the external marks of the adult, the head is equally black, and they chatter and skip about with all the agility and self-possession of their

N.B. Mr. Nuttall has, here, the following note:-'In Europe however this kind, if the same species, as asserted by Temminck, is said to dig out an excavation in decayed willows, in which it makes a nest of moss, thistledown, and sometimes a little wool and feathers.'

parents, who appear, nevertheless, very solicitous for their safety. From this time the whole family continue to associate together through the autumn and winter. They seem to move by concert from tree to tree, keeping up a continued 'tshe-de-de-de-de and 'tshe-de-de-de-dart, preceded by a shrill whistle, all the while busily engaged picking round the buds and branches, hanging from their extremities and proceeding often in reversed postures, head downwards, like so many tumblers, prying into every crevice of the bark, and searching around the roots and in every possible retreat of their insect prey or its larvæ. If the object chance to fall, they industriously descend to the ground and glean it up with the utmost economy."

On seeing a cat, or other object of natural antipathy, the Chicadee, like the peevish jay, scolds in a loud, angry, and hoarse note, like 'Tshe, daigh, daigh, daigh. Among the other notes of this species, I have heard a call like tshe-de-jay, tshe-de-jay, the two first syllables being a slender chirp, with the jay strongly pronounced. The only note of this bird which may be called a song, is one which is frequently heard at intervals in the depth of the forest, at times of the day, usually, when other birds are silent. We then may sometimes hear in the midst of this solitude two feeble, drawling, clearly whistled, and rather melancholy notes, like 'te-derry, and sometimes ye-pěrrit, and, occasionally, but much more rarely, in the same wiry, whistling, solemn tone, 'phebé. The young, in winter, also sometimes drawl out these contemplative strains. In all cases the first syllable is very high and clear, the second word drops low, and ends like a feeble plaint. This is nearly all the quaint song ever attempted by the Chicadee; and is perhaps the two notes sounding like the whetting of a saw, remarked of this bird* in England by Mr. White, in his Natural History of Selborne (vol. i.). On fine days about the commencement of October, I have heard the Chicadee sometimes for half an hour at a time, attempt a lively, petulant warble, very different from his ordinary notes. On these occasions he appears to flirt about, still hunting for his prey, but almost in an ecstasy of delight and vigour. But after a while the usual drawling note again occurs. These birds, like many others, are very subject to the attacks of vermin, and they accumulate in great numbers around that part of the head and front which is least accessible to their feet.'

The European bird is supposed to be partial to marshy places. Ours has no such predilection, nor does the American bird, that I can learn, even lay up or hide any store