14 Notes on Bird- Life. [Sess. 



but the minutest search failed to discover it until at last, as 

 we said, the young ones came to our assistance, and we found 

 it in an old tin coffee-pot, which had been the most noticeable 

 object during all our repeated searches. 



To return, however, to the titmice, I find it noticed in 

 almost all books on the subject that they disarrange the 

 thatch of out-houses in quest of torpid insects. Gilbert White 

 says : " The great titmouse, driven by stress of weather, much 

 frequents houses ; and in deep snows I have seen this bird, 

 while it hung with its back downwards, to my no small delight 

 and admiration, draw straws lengthwise from the eaves of 

 thatched houses in order to pull out the flies that were con- 

 cealed between them, and that in such numbers that they 

 quite defaced the thatch and gave it a ragged appearance." 

 Now, while I don't dispute that the titmice may do this 

 in search of food, still it is the fact that they shelter themselves 

 during the night in the holes they so make under the thatched 

 eaves ; and I have taken dozens of them in a night by going 

 round the old-fashioned farm-offices and searching all such holes 

 by thrusting the hand into them. To do this, one does not 

 require to be of a nervous temperament, as the titmice are of 

 a bold nature, and bite the hand in quite a savage manner 

 when they feel themselves taken hold of. They make first- 

 rate pets, and thrive well in captivity, provided they can be 

 kept in the cage, but they have such a faculty for getting 

 outside that it is a difficult matter to confine them. They 

 delight greatly in nuts, and manage in a very clever way to 

 scoop out the contents of a nut suspended in the air by a string 

 from the top of the cage, grasping the nut with their feet in 

 the process. 



In addition to blackbirds, mavises, and hedge-sparrows, we 

 found the nests of greenfinches, chaffinches, and robins : but it 

 would be difficult to give any idea of the numbers of nests in 

 the Garden, because very often one found that, since the 

 previous visit, the eggs had been taken from a particular nest, 

 while near at hand a pair of the same species, evidently the 

 owners of the harried nest, were engaged in niditication. The 

 Garden is not well suited for birds nesting, as the greater 

 number of otherwise suitable trees or shrubs are of the ever- 

 green species, and as a general rule birds, with perhaps the 



