Cassell's book of birds; vol. 2

by Alfred Edmund Brehm

The SOMBRE TIT (Parus lugubris).—"This bird," says Mr. Gould, "does not approach the British Islands, nor even the more temperate parts of the European Continent. Its habitat is almost restricted to the European confines of the Asiatic border; it has, however, never been observed in Austria, or any part of Germany, although pretty common in Dalmatia. The male and female are alike in plumage, and may be thus described:—The whole of the upper surface is of a brownish ash-colour, becoming deeper on the top of the head; the secondaries and tail-feathers are slightly margined with white; throat brownish black; the cheeks and the whole of the under surface white, slightly tinted with brownish grey; beak and feet lead-colour."

THE COLE TIT.

The COLE TIT (Parus ater).—The head, neck, and upper breast are black; the cheeks and nape white. The length of the bird is four inches and a half, its breadth seven inches. The bill is black, the irides hazel, the legs are lead-grey; the upper part of the plumage is greyish, the belly yellowish white. The covers of the secondaries and those above are tipped with white, forming two bars across the wing. In the female the white on the cheeks is less extended.

This species is generally spread over the continent of Europe, and is almost as frequent in Great Britain as the Great Tit or the Blue Tit. It has been considered by some naturalists to be identical with the Marsh Tit, but may at once be distinguished from that bird by the white patch on the nape of the neck, and the white spots on the wing-covers, which are not to be found on the Marsh Tit at any age. The Cole Tit frequents woods and plantations, especially those in which oak, birch, and fir trees are numerous, and may be seen in company with other birds of similar habits, roving from tree to tree in search of the small insects and seeds on which they subsist. "In the pine forests of the Dee and Spey," says Macgillivray, "where very few birds are met with, it is pleasant to follow a troop of these tiny creatures, as they search the tree-tops, spreading all round, fluttering and creeping among the branches, ever in motion, now clinging to a twig in an inverted position, now hovering over a tuft of leaves, picking in a crevice of the bark, searching all the boughs, sometimes visiting the lowermost, and again winding among those at the very tops of the trees. In wandering among these woods you are attracted by their shrill, chirping notes, which they continually emit as they flutter among the branches." "In woodlands," says Mr. Hepburn, "it is common to see it hopping along the grounds, and uttering its harsh notes, 'If hee!' 'if hee!' It delights to examine a ditch that has just been cleaned out. I have seen it pull small earthworms to pieces and devour them."

"It is a matter of curious inquiry," says Gilbert White, "to trace out how those species of soft-billed birds that continue with us the winter through, subsist during the dead months. The imbecility of birds seems not to be the only reason why they shun the rigour of our winters, for the robust Wry-neck (so much resembling the hardy race of Woodpeckers) migrates, while the feeble little Golden-crested Wren, that shadow of a bird, braves our severest frosts without availing himself of houses or villages, to which most of our birds crowd in distressful seasons, while he keeps aloof in fields and woods; but perhaps this may be the reason why they often perish, and why they are almost as rare as any bird we know.

"I have no reason to doubt that that the soft-billed birds which winter with us subsist chiefly on insects in their chrysalis state. All the species of Wagtails in severe weather haunt shallow streams, near their spring-heads, where they never freeze; and, by wading, pick out the chrysalis of the genus of Phryganeæ.

"Hedge Sparrows frequent sinks and gutters in hard weather, where they pick up crumbs and other sweepings, and in mild weather they procure worms, which are stirring every month in the year, as any one may see that will only be at the trouble of taking a candle to a grass-plot on any mild winter's night. Redbreasts and Wrens in the winter haunt outhouses, stables, and barns, where they find spiders and flies, that have laid themselves up during the cold season. But the grand support of the soft-billed birds in the winter is that infinite profusion of chrysalids of the Lepidoptera ordo which is fastened to the twigs of trees and their trunks, to the poles and walls of gardens and buildings, and is found in every cranny and cleft of rock or rubbish, and even in the ground itself.

"Every species of Titmouse winters with us. They have," continues our author, "what I call an intermediate bill, between the hard and the soft, between the Linnæan genera of Fringilla and Motacilla. One species alone spends its whole time in the woods and fields, never retreating for succour, in the severest seasons, to houses and neighbourhoods, and that is the delicate Long-tailed Titmouse, which is almost as minute as the Golden-crowned Wren, but the Blue Titmouse or Nun (Parus cæruleus), the Cole Mouse (Parus ater), the Great Black-headed Titmouse (Fringillago), and the Marsh Titmouse (Parus palustris), all resort at times to buildings, and in hard weather particularly. The Great Titmouse, driven by stress of weather, much frequents houses, and in deep snows I have seen this bird, while it hung with its back downwards (to my no small delight and admiration) draw straws lengthwise from out the eaves of thatched houses, in order to pull out the flies that were concealed between them, and that in such numbers that they quite defaced the thatch, and gave it a ragged appearance.

"The Blue Titmouse, or Nun, is a great frequenter of houses, and a general devourer. Besides insects, it is very fond of flesh, for it frequently picks bones on dunghills. It is a vast admirer of suet, and haunts butchers' shops. It will also pick holes in apples left on the ground, and be well entertained with the seeds on the head of a sunflower. The Blue Marsh and Great Titmice will, in very severe weather, carry away barley and oat-straws from the sides of ricks.

"How the Wheat-ear and Whin-chat support themselves in winter cannot be so easily ascertained, since they spend their time on wild heaths and warrens, the former especially where there are stone-quarries. Most probable it is that their maintenance arises from the aurelia of the Lepidoptera ordo, which furnish them with a plentiful table in the wilderness."