The Great Tit. 149 



tree in which the bird was, and invariably after this Tit has been caught and 

 caged). The song varies a good deal, but the best-known song of this species is 

 its ungreased wheel-barrow note, which may be heard at all seasons — chee-chi, chee- 

 chi, chee-chi, chcc-chi. The true love song is only heard in the spring — tsoo-tsoo ivcrry 

 tsoo-tsoo iverry, isee tsee. 



The nest is alwa3'S placed in some kind of cavity, even if it be but a gap 

 among the sticks below a Rook's nest ; but the favourite site is certainly a hole 

 in a fruit-tree sometimes a foot or more below the opening ; it may also be found 

 in a mere decayed cavity, in which case the nest is built like that of a Wren; in 

 a flower-pot, letter-box, an old disused pump, hole in a wall, or even in the 

 ground, and often behind detached planking and lattice-work. 



In form the nest represents two t3'pes, those built in open situations are 

 domed, formed of moss ; and, in one which I took, without any lining (although 

 it contained its full complement of eggs) ; the commoner type of nest is merely a 

 slightl}' concave disc at the bottom of the hole selected by the birds for their 

 nurser}-, and consists of a thick foundation of dried grass or moss, with an upper 

 la3'er of hair, wool, or feathers : occasionally (but chiefly when moss is used) 

 the moss is carried a little distance up the inner walls of the hollow trunk or 

 branch. It is no easy matter for the birds' -nester to secure a perfect specimen of 

 the latter type of nest, inasmuch as one has to raise it to the entrance hole by 

 means of a long twisted wire, without losing any of the eggs, and then draw it 

 slowly through what is often a very small aperture. 



According to Seebohm the number of eggs varies from five to eleven ; but, 

 from my experience, I should say that a full clutch consisted of six eggs, and that 

 any number above six was the product of a second hen : that two hens do lay in 

 the same nest, was conclusively proved by Mr. J. C. Pool in a letter to the 

 "Feathered World" for May nth, 1894, where he noted the addition of two eggs 

 on the same day, to a nest built in a letter-box. Curiously enough Mr. Pool 

 insisted that the same hen must have laid both eggs, which is (of course) quite 

 out of the question ; moreover the nest contained ten eggs, two of which subse- 

 quently disappeared, doubtless broken during a quarrel between the two hens and 

 carried out by the victor. Mr. Pool's conviction that — as he never saw more than 

 one hen, there could hardly have been two, proves nothing : the same bird could 

 not have deposited two eggs on one day.* In colour the eggs are white, spotted 

 with blood-red. 



That Great Tits may be bigamists is possible, that they are Bluebeards and 



* lu the case of double-yoked eggs, I believe a day is missed before laying: a Canary of mine after laying 

 three eggs, missed a day; then laid a double-yoked one, which took seventeen days to hatch, and produced 

 two perfect young ones. 



