PERCHING BIRDS. §3 
care in feeding their numerous progeny, their consump- 
tion of the various ravagers of our fruits and flowers 
must be considerable, more so, perhaps, than those who 
have not watched their exemplary attention to their 
young would be inclined to believe. 
Of the seven British species five are constantly to be 
met with throughout the year, though some are more 
abundant than others. 
The Great Titmouse (Parus major) delights in a 
woodland home, but in the winter it is a constant 
visitor to our gardens. In its search for insects it is un- 
doubtedly very destructive to the buds of fruit trees, and 
I have often remarked the partiality which it evinced 
for the buds of a Siberian crab-tree in my own garden. 
I have seen them in the beginning of December in our 
woods in company with P. ceruleus, P. ater, and 
P. caudatus, busily searching the mossy trunks of the 
old oak trees, prying ito every crevice of the rugged 
bark, or clinging to the branches and plucking off with 
a vigorous twitch the withered leaves that still clung 
closely to them. 
A writer in the Gardener's Chronicle states that he 
has observed the great tit come down on the roof of his 
wooden shed over his beehives, and tap on it with his 
bill until a bee came out, when he pounced on it, and 
ate it; and this not once or twice. 
In our gardens the Blue Titmouse (P. ceruleus) is the 
most constant visitor. Ever in motion, it seems the 
personification of mischief, a veritable ornithological 
mountebank, for in the course of five minutes it will go 
through all the postures and attitudes which it is pos- 
sible for a bird to practise, and while so doing it seems 
to have no fear of determination of blood to the brain, 
G 2 
