140 BIRDS 0¥ NORFOLK. 



the theory of perpetual motion, this engaging race 

 has always won the attention of observing naturalists, 

 and from its unwearied researches after insect life, 

 deserves at our hands every possible protection and 

 encouragement. The Great Titmouse is common 

 throughout the year, frequenting woods and planta- 

 tions as well as gardens in the close vicinity of our towns, 

 but the latter more particularly in the winter season. 

 Occasionally, also, this species has been met with 

 during the autumn months under circumstances suggest- 

 ing the probability of their numbers being increased 

 at that season, and an apparently (return) migratory 

 movement was observed at Yarmouth in February, 

 1848, as recorded by Messrs. Gurney and Fisher in the 

 '^ Zoologist" for that year. This bird, like the little 

 bluecap, is often strangely eccentric in the choice of 

 a nesting place, though commonly selecting some suit- 

 able aperture in either walls or trees, and is par- 

 ticularly partial to a decayed stump. A nest, which I took 

 myself on the 11th May, 1863, in a plantation at Kes- 

 wick, was built at the bottom of an old tree stump, hav- 

 ing a small hole in its upper surface, through which the wet 

 had penetrated, forming the only entrance to the bird's 

 dwelling. Having enlarged the opening, I caught the 

 hen bird and let her fly, and then found nine eggs lying 

 on the rotten wood which filled the bottom of the trunk, 

 but not in the nest, although close beside it. The nest 

 was formed of moss outside, lined with hair, wool, and 

 a few feathers and shreds of gay-coloured threads, as if 

 from carpets or red woollen cloth. Both Montagu and 

 Hewitson have recorded instances of the eggs of this 

 species, in similar locahties, being laid on the rotten 

 wood alone, without any nest; but in this case I took 

 the bird off the nest, and from the eggs being perfectly 

 uninjured and placed in a regular manner, I do not 

 think they had been turned out by the titmouse, in her 



