SHORT CUTS ТО NECTARIES BY BLUE TITS. 410 
damaged flowers. On the other three sides (including the two long sides) 
practically no bushes have escaped, except a very few that are as yet only in 
bud. The damage is worst on the west, where the line of Scotch firs already 
referred to bounds the garden, rather less on the east, where are scattered 
hawthorns and lilacs (each just coming into leaf) and a clump of Scotch firs 
and beeches at each corner, and least on the north, where are quite leafless 
beeches, smothering in their branches two or three rather poor Scotch firs. 
“I watched a humble-bee (Bombus terrestris) visiting the flowers. She 
entered all by their proper openings. Actually she only went up to two 
pierced flowers, and turned away from each of these ; presumably the nectar 
was drying up asa result of the damage.” 
“April —. This morning I saw a Blue Tit in one of the gooseberry 
bushes at fairly close quarters, and watehed it. It was not solely after 
honey, for it twice dropped to the ground below the bush to pick up what 
may have been a small insect. Then it returned to the flowers and entered 
many of them, always from the side, with its bill. Some it pulled at, from 
the side, presumably making the usual hole in them. I found on its 
departure that a number of the flowers had been freshly opened, I suppose 
by the bird. 
« This afternoon I repeated the observation in another part of the garden. 
The bird was once more P. ceruleus, Linn. I also watched some hive-bees 
visiting the gooseberry flowers. They occasionally visited pierced flowers, 
entering them usually by the natural opening, but for the most part they 
quite definitely rejected such flowers, turning away from them on reaching 
them. I examined a number of torn and untorn flowers, and found that 
in the former the nectar supply tended apparently to dry up sooner than in 
the latter. This would doubtless account for the bees’ behaviour. They 
evidently distinguished by scent. One hive-bee entered a torn flower by its 
natural opening, but evidently noticing, in moving her proboscis about its 
interior, the large freshly-made opening in the side, came out of the flower 
and entered it by this entrance instead. On passing thence to another flower 
she landed without hesitation on its side (ignoring the natural opening 
completely), and, finding a breach there, entered the flower by it. She went 
to the side of the next flower, too, but finding no breach she entered it by its 
natural opening ; and of the next two she went straight to the natural 
opening, though there was a perforation in the first of them.” 
“April —. Saw Blue Tits four or five times in all at the gooseberry 
flowers early this morning, but they were shy of me, and I found it difficult 
to approach within effective distance without frightening them off directly 
or indirectly (through an alarm given by a companion in the trees above). 
In some cases, at any rate, the birds seemed to search the foliage for insects, 
as well as entering the flowers. I also saw no definite tearing of the latter. 
