the latitudes 35deg and 56deg N. as far as the Amoor valley. Besides these wide-ranging species there are several others which are more restricted. _Parus teneriffae_, a beautiful dark blue form of our blue tit, inhabits North-west Africa and the Canaries; _Parus ledouci_, closely allied to our coal tit, is found only in Algeria; _Parus lugubris_, allied to the marsh tit, is confined to South-east Europe and Asia Minor, from Hungary and South Russia to Palestine; and _Parus cinctus_, another allied form, is confined to the extreme north in Lapland, Finland, and perhaps Northern Russia and Siberia. Another beautiful little bird, the crested titmouse (_Parus cristatus_) is sometimes placed in a separate genus. It inhabits nearly all Central and South Europe, wherever there are pine forests, from 64deg N. latitude to Austria and North Italy, and in the west to Spain and Gibraltar, while in the east it does not pass the Urals and the Caucasus range. Its nearest allies are in the high Himalayas. These are all the European tits, but there are many others inhabiting Asia, Africa, and North America; so that the genus Parus has a very wide range, in Asia to Ceylon and the Malay Islands, in Africa to the Cape, and in North America to the highlands of Mexico. _The Distribution of the Species of Jays._--Owing to the very wide range of several of the tits, the uncertainty of the specific distinction of others, and the difficulty in many cases of ascertaining their actual distribution, it has not been found practicable to illustrate this genus by means of a map. For this purpose we have chosen the genus Garrulus or the jays, in which the species are less numerous, the specific areas less extensive, and the species generally better defined; while being large and handsome {21} birds they are sure to have been collected, or at least noticed, wherever they occur. There are, so far as yet known, twelve species of true jays, occupying an area extending from Western Europe to Eastern Asia and Japan, and nowhere passing the Arctic circle to the north, or the tropic of Cancer to the south, so that they constitute one of the most typical of the Palaearctic[6] genera. The following are the species, beginning with the most westerly and proceeding towards the east. The numbers prefixed to each species correspond to those on the coloured map which forms the frontispiece to this volume. 1. _Garrulus glandarius._--The common jay, inhabits the British Isles and all Europe except the extreme north, extending also into North Africa, where it has been observed in many parts of Algeria. It occurs near Constantinople, but apparently not in Asia Minor; and in Russia, up to, but not beyond, the Urals. The jays being woodland birds are not found in open plains or barren uplands, and their distribution is hence by no means uniform within the area they actually occupy.