rough bark of a Scotch fir, and prise them off with a jerk
which sends them to some distance.
This bird makes its nest in holes in old willows, and
especially chooses those which, growing by the sides of streams
and rivers, are every few years polled : but other suitable trees
and rotten stumps are also used, and it has been known to
breed in a rat’s hole in the ground. Montagu says lie has
seen it artfully excavating the decayed part of a willow, and
carrying the chips in its bill to some distance, always working
downwards, and making the bottom larger than the
entrance. The nest is generally placed 011 a bed of chips or
fragments of rotten wood, and consist® of moss mixed with
willow-down and sometimes a little wool, felted together with
hair, especially rabbits’ fur, the whole being often lined with
soft willow-down. The eggs are from five to eight in number,
measuring from ‘65 to ‘57 by from ’49 to '46 in., white,
spotted with dull light-red, and generally have a more dingy
look than those of the other species. The call-note of
the Marsh-Titmouse is harsh and easily to be distinguished
from that of its congeners, sounding like the syllables “ peh ”
“ peh ” hoarsely pronounced, but the spring-notes of the
cock are varied, gay, and more musical.
From Cornwall in the south-west, the Marsh-Titmouse
may be traced throughout all the counties of England and
the greater part of Wales; but its distribution is certainly
local, and not entirely determined by the presence or
absence of marshy ground, for in Lincolnshire it is not of
common occurrence, though of late years, according to Mr.
Cordeaux, oftener met with than formerly. Some ornithologists
think that where this species is abundant the preceding
is rare, and so conversely. This opinion, considering
the difference of their haunts, is very likely true, but it
may be remarked that in some localities each is to be found
in about equal numbers, neither being very common. In
Scotland its distribution is very partial, b u t' it would seem
to occur throughout the eastern Lowlands, Lanarkshire and
Renfrewshire. I t also inhabits the counties of Stirling,
Fife, Perth, Aberdeen and Inverness, in most of which it
has only been recently remarked, and Mr. Harvie Brown
thinks that it is rapidly pushing its range northwards. Sir
W. Jardine, in 1839, noticed its decrease in Dumfriesshire,
where it is now considered only an occasional winter-
visitant, its place being taken by the Coal-Titmouse, which,
as already mentioned, has there largely increased. In
Ireland, Thompson met with it only near Belfast, but a
specimen has been shot near Dublin, and Mr. Ball has seen
it in the county Kildare.
The continental range of the Marsh-Titmouse is not very
easily defined, owing to the existence of a bird to which
most authorities have assigned the rank of a species,
though on grounds which seem to the Editor very slight.
Yet as most of those who have had the opportunity of
observing this bird—the Parus borealis of Baron de Selys-
Longchamps—in life, declare that it differs in habit from
P. palustris, the specific distinctness of the two may
perhaps here be recognized, but their very close resemblance
in appearance must be admitted by all, and it may further
be remarked in connection herewith, that British examples
of the Marsh-Titmouse differ somewhat in coloration from
continental specimens, though not to the same extent as
has already been mentioned in the case of the Coal-Titmouse.
With regard to these birds Messrs. Sharpe and
Dresser have taken even more than their usual pains when
discriminating nearly-allied forms, and if the results at which
they have arrived are not entirely convincing, the fact
cannot be ascribed to the want of care and labour or to the
fewness of the specimens they have compared. In their
work, these gentlemen consider that P. palustris has been
shewn to exist in Norway and Sweden up to lat. 61° N., and
that it also inhabits Denmark, Germany, Turkey, Greece,
Italy, Switzerland, France, Belgium and Holland. In the
north of Europe it is replaced by P. borealis, which also
appears in the Alps, where it was at one time regarded as
distinct, and called P. alpestris by M. Bailly. In the southeast
of Europe there occurs another bird, the P. lugubris of
Johann Natterer, which seems to be an extreme form of
v o l . 1 . 3 s