The nutcrackers can scarcely be numbered among the common birds, but are sometimes seen in our hill stations, and, such is the "cussedness" of birds that if I omit to notice the nutcrackers several are certain to show themselves to many of those who read these lines. A chocolate-brown bird, bigger than a crow, and spotted and barred with white all over, can be nothing other than one of the Himalayan nutcrackers. It may be the Himalayan species (_Nucifraga hemispila_), or the larger spotted nutcracker (_N. multipunctata_). The members of the crow family which I have attempted to describe above are all large birds, birds bigger than a crow. It now behoves us to consider the smaller members of the corvine clan. The tits form a sub-family of the crows. Now at first sight the crow and the tit seem to have but little in common. However, close inspection, whether by the anatomist or the naturalist, reveals the mark of the corvidae in the tits. First, there is the habit of holding food under the foot while it is being devoured. Then there is the aggressiveness of the tits. This is Lloyd-Georgian or even Winstonian in its magnitude. "Tits," writes Jerdon, "are excessively bold and even ferocious, the larger ones occasionally destroying young and sickly birds, both in a wild state and in confinement." Many species of tit dwell in the Himalayas. To describe them all would bewilder the reader; I will, therefore, content myself with brief descriptions of four species, each of which is to be seen daily in every hill station of the Western Himalayas. The green-backed tit (_Parus monticola_) is a glorified edition of our English great tit. It is a bird considerably smaller than a sparrow. The cheeks are white, the rest of the head is black, as are the breast and a characteristic line running along the abdomen. The back is greenish yellow, the lower parts are deep yellow. The wings are black with two white bars, the tail is black tipped with white. This is one of the commonest birds in most hill stations. Like the sparrow, it is ever ready to rear up its brood in a hole in the wall of a house. Any kind of a hole will do, provided the aperture is too small to admit of the entrance of birds larger than itself. The nesting operations of a pair of green-backed tits form the subject of a separate essay. Another tit much in evidence is the yellow-cheeked tit, _Machlolophus xanthogenys_. I apologise for its scientific name. Take a green-backed tit, paint its cheeks bright yellow, and give it a black crest tipped with yellow, and you will have transformed him into a yellow-cheeked tit.