THE COLE TIT.
Parus ater, Linnæus; La petite Charbonnière, Buffon; Die Tannenmeise, Bechstein.
The length of this bird is four inches and one-sixth, of which the tail measures one and three-quarters, and the beak one quarter. The back is black, with the tip lighter; the iris is dusky; the shanks are eight lines high, and lead blue; the upper part of the head and neck are black; there is rather a broad streak of white at the back of the head and down the nape of the neck; the cheeks and sides of the neck are also white, forming, when the bird is at rest, a triangular spot; the back is dark bluish ash grey.
The female is not easily distinguished from the male, unless both are before you; its being a little less black on the breast, and a little less white on the sides, are the only differences.
Habitation.—When wild these birds are seen in great numbers in pine forests, and seldom, except during their wanderings in autumn, winter, and spring, are they met with in other kinds of woods, groves, and orchards. They often pass from one pine forest to another in large flights during the winter[111]. They appear to like the society of the gold-crested wrens, which are always found in these flights, as also some crested tits, which serve as guides.
In the house it is pleasanter to allow them to range with the other birds than to keep them in a cage, yet there is some danger to their companions from their cruelty.
Food.—When wild, besides insects and their grubs, they feed on the seeds of different resinous trees; but as they are often deprived of this food in winter from the trees being loaded with snow and hoar frost, nature has given them the instinct to provide against this emergency: they hide a great quantity of these seeds in fissures, and under the large scales of the bark of pine trees, to which store they have recourse when in want.