are more remarkable for vivacity and frequent repetition, than
for quality of tone. The nest, formed of moss and lined
with hair and feathers, is usually placed in a hollow of a tree
or a hole in a wall. The deserted nest of a Crow or a Magpie
is sometimes chosen. Several observers have recorded
the partiality so frequently evinced by this species to build
its nest in or about any old unused wooden pump, and the
mass of materials collected on such occasions wherewith to
construct it. The eggs are from six to nine in number, nine
lines and a half in length, and seven lines in breadth; white,
spotted and speckled with pale red.
This bird is common throughout the enclosed parts of most
of the counties of England and Wales ; Mr. Thompson informs
me it is indigenous to Ireland; and Mr. Macgillivray
mentions it as a native of Scotland. It inhabits Denmark,
Norway, Sweden, Russia, and Siberia, even in winter. From
thence southwards this species inhabits the whole of the
European continent. The powers of flight of this bird are
much greater than from its appearance would be expected.
The Rev. Edward Stanley, Bishop of Norwich, in his “ Familiar
History of Birds,” quotes from Forster’s “ North
America,” vol. i. an instance of the Great Tit having been
met in latitude 40° north, and longitude 48° west, more than
half way across the Atlantic, in a direct line from the Azores
to Philadelphia.
To return to the eastward, the Great Tit was obtained by
Mr. Strickland at Smyrna ; and specimens have been received
by the Zoological Society from Trebizond. M. Temminck
includes this species in his Catalogue of the Birds of Japan.
The beak is black ; the irides dusky brown ; the top of the
head black, with a spot of white at the nape of the neck ; the
cheeks and ear-coverts white; the back, shoulders, and coverts
of the tertials, greenish ash ; upper tail-coverts bluish
grey ; lesser wing-coverts greyish blue ; greater wing-coverts
bluish black, broadly tipped with white, forming a conspicuous
bar across the wings ; quill-feathers bluish black, edged
with bluish white, which is broadest on the tertials; tail-
feathers bluish black, darkest on the inner web ; the outer
tail-feather on each side dull white on the outer web, and on
part of the inner web towards the end of the feather; the
chin and throat black, and united to the black colour on
the sides of the nape, encircling the white ear-coverts and
cheeks; breasts, sides, and flanks, dull sulphur-yellow ; from
the chest to the vent a black stripe passes along the mesial
line ; under wing-coverts dull greyish white; under surface of
the wing and tail-feathers lead grey; under tail-coverts white;
legs, toes, and claws, lead colour.
The whole length of this species rather less than six inches.
From the carpal joint to the end of the longest quill-feather,
two inches and seven-eighths : the first quill-feather very
short; the second not so long as the third ; the fourth a little
longer than the fifth, and the longest in the wing.
The female does not differ much from the male; the
plumage, however, is not so brilliant in colour, and the black
line down the breast and belly is not so broad as in the
male, nor does it extend so far towards the vent.
Mr. Lewin, in his British Birds, has given a figure of the
Great Tit, taken from a specimen killed at Feversham, in
which the two mandibles of the beak crossed each other, the
points diverging laterally in opposite directions. This is an
accidental malformation which occasionally happens to other
species. I have seen it in the Crow and in the Rook.