84 THE BIRDS OF SHERWOOD FOREST. 
for it is quite as often seen with its head downwards as 
otherwise. It is a carnivorous little fellow, and delights 
in a bit of carrion. My next door neighbour, being a 
sportsman, kept a number of dogs, and to feed these, 
the carcases of sheep that had died in the fields were 
often skinned and hung up on poles around the kennel. 
These I have sometimes seen covered by as many as 
forty or fifty of the blue titmice, pecking away with all 
the vigour of which they are capable, and that is not a 
little. Tallow scraps, too, which were used for feeding 
the dogs, were much relished, but the carrion had the 
preference. 
Professor Buckman has recently noticed that the blue 
tit benefits foresters by destroying the flies which cause 
the oak galls, which in many parts of the country are 
threatening ruin to young oak plantations. 
The blue tit is not afraid to enter houses, and I have 
very often found them in a detached room in my garden 
that was used as a schoolroom, taking advantage of the 
door being left open. They would generally fly to the 
window on any one entering the room, but did not 
exhibit much fear, and when I have caught them in my 
hand the little things would bite fiercely at my fingers 
and try to effect their liberation. 
Mr. Hewitson mentions a pair of bluecaps having 
built their nest in a bottle, and the following is another 
‘instance more remarkable still, and is well authen- 
ticated :— 
In 1779 a pair of these birds built their nest in a 
large stone bottle that had been left to drain in the 
lower branches of a plum tree in the garden of Calender, 
near Stockton-on-Tees, and safely hatched their young. 
Every following year the bottle was frequented for the — 
