89 
which had been thrown away in the shrubbery. Another 
constructed its nest in the nail bag that was hung up in the tool 
house; a third occupied a suspended flower pot in the furnace 
house attached to the greenhouse. Although such a general 
favourite, the Robin is far from having a loving disposition, as the 
following fact will show :—My daughter had an aviary cage with 
many canaries in it, which she kept in a greenhouse; one day a 
Robin who had found his way into the greenhouse was caught and 
put into the cage with the canaries, where he subsequently became 
very tame and a great favourite; but one day, another Robin got 
into the greenhouse, and finding one of his own species in 
possession of the cage, became very jealous and began a fight with 
the caged Robin, and by some means got into the cage where there 
were some defective wires, and killed the tame Robin. After this 
he was liberated, which was more than he deserved; but my 
daughter said she could not keep a murderer. 
The Fire Crested Wren has been met with on several 
occasions, and may be more common than is generally supposed, 
being mistaken fur the common Golden Crested Wren ; the latter 
I often find builds in my Deodar. 
FAMILY PARIDA.—(page 107). 
Among the family of the Parida, the very rare White-headed 
Long-tailed Titmouse was shot at the back of Dover Castle by 
Mr. Gorilon, and is now in the collection of Walter Prentis, Esq., 
of Rainham, Kent. 
The Long-tailed Titmouse is tolerably abundant, and often 
met with in companies of a dozen or more; it shows little fear of 
man, and may be easily approached. I have had many instances 
of its beautiful nest being constructed in my garden; on one 
occasion it was on the top branch of a small red cedar, which was 
weighed down in an arch over the nest by the weight of it, and 
completely concealed by the tree, it was close to a path and not 
much higher than your head, yet it was not observed till after the 
- young ones were fledged. The Tits, like the Robins, choose very 
curious places for their nests. A pair of Blue Tits built in an 
empty bee hive, which they had filled with leaves, leaving a place 
for the nest in the centre; a friend of mine had some Tits 
construct their nest beneath two inverted flower pots placed upon 
the ground, and it was difficult to conceive how the birds found 
their way in and out, through the two perpendicular small holes. 
A striking illustration of the intelligence of these birds, was 
shown by a pair that had constructed their nest in an old wall 
belonging to a friend of mine residing at Sandwich; he relates, 
while walking in the garden one morning his attention was drawn 
