TJicir Eggs and Nests, 93 



FAMILY XI.— PARID^E. 



GREAT TITMOUSE— (P.zr?^^ major). 



Great Tit, Oxeye, Blackcap, Great Blackheaded 

 Tom-tit, Pick-cheese. — It might also be called, and I 

 believe is in one district, the Saw-sharpener, for its 

 note certainly puts one in mind of that agreeable 

 musical operation. The Tom-tits are familiar to all 

 of us, and " impudent " is one of the epithets we most 

 usually apply to the whole tribe. Most of them breed 

 in some hollow place or hole. The nest of the Great 

 Tit is formed of moss, with a feather lininof, and is 

 sometimes placed in a hole in a wall ; sometimes in 

 some appropriate recess in a hollow tree. Like the 

 other Tits, it lays many eggs, occasionally from six to 

 nine. They are white, of fair size, and well spotted 

 as well as speckled with a decided shade of red. 

 There is an easily recognised resemblance between tlie 

 eggs of all the Tom-tit family. — Fig. 16, plate III. 



BLUE TITMOUSE— (/'^r/zj avruicns). 

 Tom-tit, Blue Tom-tit, Nun, Bluecap, Blue-bonnet, 

 Billy-biter, Hickwall, Blue Mope. — One of the most 

 impudent of an impudent lot. A pair had built their 

 nest in a crevice between the lintel and stone-work of 

 my coach-house, and my children from their nursery 

 window observed it. For their amusement I ^rot a 

 ladder and looked in. The bold little matron could 

 not be induced to leave the hole, but spit and hissed 

 like a regular vixen, and tried to make herself as big 

 as two by ruilling up her feathers, so as to Irighten 



