202 Habits and Peculiarities 



they will then proceed to make a meal off a dead one. When 

 newly caught, however, the large species will frequently do so 

 in confinement ; and it will sometimes not even spare its own 

 kind, though such instances are, perhaps, rare. Bechstein re- 

 lates a case of one killing a quail. Yet there are many that 

 will, in captivity, live in perfect amity with other birds ; and I 

 have seen a stout healthy individual submit to be buffeted by 

 that quarrelsome little active species, the white-breasted fauvet, 

 or lesser whitethroat, which is considerably its inferior in size. 

 I have known the cole tit, also, one that had lived for many 

 months in a cage, full of the smaller insectivorous birds, seize 

 a young half-fledged kinglet, and begin very deliberately to 

 eat it. Of course, no such sanguinary appetite, in the least 

 degree, exists in the rose mufflin (Mecistura). 



Both the tits and the mufflin (but chiefly the former) 

 are in the habit of plucking off the buds of trees, to get 

 at the insects that lurk within them ; for which heinous sin, 

 in many parishes, a price is still set upon the heads of the 

 unfortunate " tomtits." Let any one who is prejudiced against 

 the tribe watch for a minute or two the proceedings of a tit 

 that is so employed, and he will then see occasion to be grateful 

 to the little creature for its services. He will perceive it ex- 

 amine bough after bough, and leave them untouched, so long 

 as it can descry no traces of its insect prey ; but presently 

 it will find a cluster of buds, which it attacks and pulls off 

 with avidity ; buds that are, in fact, already destroyed in the 

 centre by an insidious brood of maggots. These are the 

 prey of the tit family. The bullfinch feeds upon the buds 

 themselves. I have no desire to varnish over the real depre- 

 dations of the tits ; for sometimes they will commit sad havoc 

 upon the ripe apples and pears : they are, indeed, almost the 

 only small birds that feed on the former. But the bottletit 

 is free from even this imputation, and should not, therefore, 

 be ranged among the guilty. 



Few birds are so preeminently distinguished for the beau- 

 tiful workmanship of their nests as is the species now under 

 consideration ; the domed cradle of which forms, without ex- 

 ception, the most exquisite fabric of the kind to be found within 

 the British islands. Several weeks are occupied in its construc- 

 tion ; and yet it is often finished by the close of the month of 

 March or beginning of April ; though, in this case, as can be 

 shown pretty clearly, it is never the production of birds of the 

 preceding year. The bottletit, we know, remains in families 

 till the return of spring ; and an individual of this species is 

 never seen, as the tits often are, solitary, unless it has a nest 

 to provide for. Now, it invariably happens, among birds, that 



