The Oologists' Record, June i, 1922. 47 



perhaps equally important, is the provision of nesting sites adapted 

 for the use of the species one hopes to attract. Commander 

 Vaughan very kindly brought Mi. Hiesemann's book to our notice 

 when we told him how we pruned our silver birch trees to ensure 

 the requisite " shrubbiness," but this book does not suggest any- 

 thing more than we had already attempted. 



Our nesting boxes are crude home-made affairs, and the proof of 

 their worth is in the using. We find that the Tits like a box with 

 an entrance only just sufficient to admit them, and that it is very 

 important to see that the rain is not allowed to drip into them. 



Our boxes have been tenanted by Great and Blue Tits time 

 and again, by Robins and once by Redstarts which are by no means 

 common here. A Tree Creeper is now sitting on her eggs in a nest . 

 built behind a piece of bark we had attached to the trunk of a Scotch' 

 lir quite near the house. We rather feared we had made the. cavity 

 too small, and indeed there seems only just room for the bird to 

 sit on the nest. 



Mr. J. W'arren Jacobs, of Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, an old 

 correspondent of ours, and now one of the foremost exponents of- 

 " bird-architecture " in the States, was good enough to promise us 

 some eggs of the Chickadee, Parus atricapillus, which we wished 

 to foist on one of our Tits here. Meantime we have sent him five 

 fresh Blue Tit's eggs for a similar purpose. In order that the Blue 

 Tit's nest should be easily accessible, we placed a nest box on the 

 window-sill of an upstairs window quite early in the season, and 

 were surprised to see a pair of Cole Tits seriously viewing the premises 

 on more than one occasion. They did not, however, do more than this ; 

 and, having stopped up about fifteen cavities in a series of iron posts, 

 many of which have been used before by Blue Tits, we thought we 

 should be sure of getting a pair to use this box. When nine eggs 

 were laid, we took five for Mr. Jacobs, hoping that this would not 

 upset matters : but it did. The Blue Tit seemed to forsake the nest, 

 but after two days added more material to it, and laid more eggs, 

 upon which she is now sitting. We do not know just how many 

 more as we feared to disturb her too much. 



. In the case of this nest we noticed that, like the Great Tit, the 

 eggs were covered during the day with a pad of soft material, and 

 that, even when the nest only contained a single ege^, it was brooded 

 on at night. 



Vox the third vear in succession, we have had a Chaffinch's 



