USEFUL.
CRESTED TITMOUSE. COAL-TITMOUSE.
The Coal-tit.
(Parus ater.)
This lively, pretty, amiable bird, also lives in the thickest parts of the fir woods, where it carries on its work of destroying the injurious insects, the number of which is enormous. It used to be thought that the Coal-Tit did harm to the young buds; but this has never been authenticated, and even if it does break one off here and there, the mischief is small indeed, in comparison with the service it performs from one year’s end to the other. Its call is shrill and clear “ziwih, ziwih, ziwih,” or “sitt, sitt”—or a long-drawn “seeb, seeb.”
This bird occurs in considerable numbers in Hungary.