210 ANNALS OF SCOTTISH NATURAL HISTORY 



Marsh Tits evidently quite at home in a mixed wood of 

 birch and pine. Several other pairs were soon detected, 

 some busy drilling holes in old stumps ; and in a few days 

 two nests were under observation. In one of them, the first 

 egg was laid on ioth May and the last (the seventh) on the 

 1 6th ; and the other was found to contain eight eggs fully a 

 week incubated on the 17th. Both were in dead portions of 

 old alders : the first within a few inches of the ground, the 

 other about twelve feet above it. The latter was in a 

 remarkably well-made hole fully a foot deep, and must have 

 cost the little artificers much labour to excavate. The fibre 

 of the outside wood was still close and firm, and could 

 scarcely have been pierced at any other point than that 

 which had been selected, namely where a branch had 

 formerly sprung from. Nesting-holes of former years were 

 observed in many parts of the woods in the district ; and I 

 cannot help thinking that not a few of the so-called wood- 

 pecker borings in the forests of Spey have been formed by 

 the Marsh Tit, and perhaps also by its crested relative : not 

 that I for a moment doubt the existence of true woodpecker 

 borings in Strathspey — I have myself seen them, — but from 

 conversations with keepers and foresters, none of whom knew 

 the Marsh Tit, I feel sure its work is often mistaken for that 

 of the now almost traditional Woodpecker. 



While engaged in the duties of incubation, the birds 

 were little seen or heard ; and it was only after the young 

 had left the nests, and the family parties were wandering 

 through the woods, that their abundance could be fully 

 realised. Though constantly observed feeding in the pines 

 in company with Cole and Crested Tits and Goldcrests, 

 they were seldom to be seen where birches or alders were 

 totally absent. 



When seen at close quarters in the beginning of May, 

 some of these Spey Marsh Tits gave one the impression 

 of being a shade lighter than southern examples ; and to 

 test this, a specimen was secured on 17th May, which, on 

 comparison with the only other specimen I possess, namely 

 one shot in Stirlingshire in autumn, seemed to bear out 

 this impression. Curious to know to what extent the Spey 

 bird differed from English and Continental examples, I asked 



