The long-tailed tit is the least of the titmice, and is only saved from being described as the smallest British bird on account of its loose plumage and long tail, which make it look a trifle more bulky than the golden-crested wren. In many of its habits, and to some extent in its appearance, it resembles the typical tits, the five species of the genus Parus which remain to be described, and is often seen associating with them in winter. In its colouring, language, and nesting habits it differs from them. It is a somewhat singular-looking little bird, with grey and rose-coloured plumage, short wings, a very long tail, and a short, conical beak, which gives the round head something of a parrot-like appearance. [Illustration: FIG. 33.--LONG-TAILED TIT. ¼ natural size.] This species is found throughout Great Britain and Ireland, but is less common in Scotland than in England. It inhabits woods and plantations, and, like the other tits, is social, active, and restless in its habits. After the breeding season the old and young birds remain united, and spend the autumn and winter months in perpetually wandering through the woods; but their travels do not take them far from home. They are seen in a scattered party, each member of which appears wholly occupied with his own search for minute insects and their eggs and larvæ, but is ready at a given signal to abandon his food-getting and join the others in their hurried flight to the next tree. And as they pass from tree to tree their short wings and long tails give them, as Knapp said, the appearance of a flight of arrows. Leaving the woods, they roam over the surrounding country, making their way by short stages from tree to tree and from bush to bush, along lanes and hedges, and visiting the clumps of trees in parks and pasture-lands. They also come about houses, not for the crumbs that fall from the table, but to continue in gardens and shrubberies their endless search for minute insects. Very restless and anxious little hearts are theirs, one would imagine, from their incessant hurried flittings from place to place, and the small, querulous sounds in which they converse together. At night they roost huddled together in a cluster composed, in some cases, of half a dozen or eight birds in a row, with three or four others perched on their backs, and one or two more resting on these.