V 



139 



titmice. 



By H. J. FuivLJAMES. 

 ( Con tin ued from page i oSy . 



SINCE writing the first portion of this article I 

 have, curiously, come across the following 

 confirmation of my recollection of having 

 heard of a case of a Blue Tit building her 

 nest in a skull. I give the extract as it was printed 

 in the magazine in which I found it. The bird is 

 mentioned as a " tom-tit," but all Tits are tom-tits to 

 the man in the street. 



" For two successive j^ears, it was recorded at the 

 " time, a tom-tit nested in the gaping mouth of Tom 

 " Otter, w4iose bod}^ gibbeted and swinging in chains, 

 *' was for a long while a terrifying object at Saxilby, 

 " from iSo8 onwards. Otter had been convicted at 

 " Lincoln of murdering his sweetheart, and was 

 " hanged at Lincoln Castle. The spot where his 

 " bod}^ swung in chains, still known from that cir- 

 " cumstance as 'Gibbet Lane,' was the scene of his 

 *' crime. A ghastly rh\nning riddle was composed 

 " by some ingenious local person with a taste for the 

 '' gruesome, on the subject of the tom-tit's singular 

 " choice, by which it would appear that the tit's 

 " family numbered nine altogether. The rhyme ran 

 *' as follows : 



" ' Ten tongues in one head, 



" ' Nine Uving and one dead : 



" ' I flew forth to fetch some bread 



" 'To feed the hving in the dead.' 



" The answer was, of course, 'The tom-tit that nested 

 *' in Tom Otter's head.' Portions of Otter's irons are 

 " still preserved at Doddington Hall, near Lincoln." 



The Great Titmouse, or Ox-eyed Tit (^Pa)iis niajo?-^ 

 is perhaps better known even than the Blue Tit, but 

 I think it is not nearlvso numerous. As its Latin name 



