The whole question as to how birds recognize one another is very interesting. We know that a shepherd can tell one sheep of his flock from another as easily as we can distinguish between two men, but in the feathered face of a bird there seems to us so little room for difference of expression, and, generally speaking, if we take feather by feather the description of one bird will apply equally well to any other of the same species. Tom-tits as a rule make way for a great-tit, but I have seen them fight occasionally, and the tom-tit does not always come off second-best. They are complete masters of both marsh and coal-tits, neither of which dream of resisting them. They pay scarcely any heed one way or another to sparrows or robins. Both tom-tits and great-tits in the flush of their spring-time ardour pay to their chosen helpmates the same delicate attentions as do robins. It is always a pretty picture to see them present their offerings of food, but with tits it seems a rather more business-like matter and to lack something of the tender sentiment so plainly shown by the robins. Though not nearly so plentiful as tom-tits, both marsh and coal-tits are with us more or less all the year round. Of the two, perhaps the marsh-tit is the more regular, sometimes a pair seem to make the garden their headquarters and to be always about, but several years may pass without our seeing one coal-tit; then they will become almost as common as tom-tits for a year or so, when again the number will dwindle down to, it may be, a single pair. Some years ago all four kinds of tit used to come together to the food-stand, but (with the exception of a pair of coal-tits in the winter of 1910-11) since 1899 tom-tits and great-tits have had it all to themselves, neither marsh nor coal-tits have been there, though both are still frequent visitors to the garden at all times of the year. In June broods of young tits appear flying from tree to tree in little parties. The old birds tirelessly hunt for food, whilst the greeny-yellowy little ones sit expecting and cheeping among the boughs. In comparing the marsh and coal-tits together one might imagine that they each originally had the same amount of black allowed them for the head, but while the marsh-tit preferred to have all his in one patch at the back, the coal-tit would have a bit cut out to make a bib for his chin! Of the two the marsh-tit is my favourite. I like the delicate tints of its more sober colouring better than the more contrasted yet more commonplace colours of the coal-tit. There seems something savouring of meanness about coal-tits; they are cautious and artful and carry away their food presumably to store, there is not time to have swallowed it before they are back again at the stand. A pair of coal-tits that were here one winter seemed quite demoralised by the food-stand, and to have altogether given up hunting for their natural food.