658 Zoology. 



bushes, but occasionally not omitting those of the plum, of 

 the cherry, and of other fruit trees. The gardeners vow, and 

 assiduously practise, vengeance against them for these depre- 

 dations, whenever, wherever, and by whatever means, they are 

 able. The g^'deners assume, not troubling themselves with 

 wide examination and tedious induction from it, that the tit- 

 mice subsist on the buds they extract ; and this assumption is 

 probably the truth ; for, in long and severe winter frosts, with 

 the ground covered with snow, it is not easy to conceive where 

 a due supply of carnivorous food, including insects in this, 

 can be procured to sustain them ; and surely it is too hypo- 

 thetical to urge that the disbudding achievements, which are 

 undeniable, of these birds, are but the incidental and uninten- 

 tional results of their diligent research for the eggs and larvae 

 of insects which may be contained in the buds they pick out. 

 The best of optimists would scarcely argue that enough of 

 these eggs and larvae would be acquirable, by the utmost dili- 

 gence of the titmice, to sustain their existence. iS'colopax rus- 

 ticola has (Vol. IV. p. 428.) shown that the bullfinch does, 

 during winter, actually feed and subsist on the buds of cherry 

 trees, and takes these buds alone for the sake of the food they 

 in themselves supply. 



On this question of the merits or demerits of the blue 

 titmouse, I have, since the receipt of Aliquis's communication, 

 submitted a query to my father, a gardener and grower of 

 fruit at Waterbeach, near Cambridge ; in which village and 

 the neighbourmg ones, the blue titmouse is called " the blue- 

 cap," and the name of " tomtit" is there only applied to the 

 common brown wren, although this latter is there also fre- 

 quently called "jenny wren." My father replied — 



" The little bluecaps are accused of picking off the buds 

 of the gooseberry bushes; perhaps justly: hence they are 

 destroyed as much as possible ; principally by traps baited 

 with animal fat ; a proof that, if they ever live on vegetable 

 food, they are driven to do so by hunger. Shepherds here- 

 abouts, when a sheep of their flock dies of disease, are in the 

 habit of flaying it, and hanging up the skin to become dry, on 

 which usually rather numerous minute fragments of flesh are 

 left remaining : all of these the bluecaps will pick off' with 

 diligent greed, and, in short, feast on any thing that contains 

 any animal matter. A kinsman, a shepherd, now with me, 

 remarks, that, in hanging up the joints of dead sheep, in re- 

 serve for the dogs, the bluecaps make claim of a share, and 

 are fond of it as cats are. I never destroy the bluecaps, 

 and I believe my crops are usually quite as good as those of 

 my neighbours. On April 8th, the bluecaps were very busy 



