52 C.C. NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 



THE PLOVER. 

 The Plover is a bird whose nest is very hard to find unless you 

 go carefully to work. It is very quick to see and hear one's approach, 

 and the best way to find its nest is not to go into a field and begin 

 hunting about, but to creep up behind a wall or hedge and then show 

 oneself. If there are any Plovers in the field, in a few seconds one 

 will fly up with a warning note and then others will be seen springing 

 up from all parts of the field. If a bird once begins wheeling round 

 and crying out " pee-wit," it will not have any eggs, but if it flies 

 straight off the field without a sound it is pretty sure to have some, 

 and if you have marked the place it rose from you will find them. 



THE BLUE TIT. 

 The Blue Tit is the smallest English Tit. It can be heard in 

 most of our fields or woods in this neighbourhood uttering its shrill 

 notes and running up and down the trees searching for its favourite 

 insects. I once saw a Blue Tit on a fir tree running up and down so 

 fast that it was extremely difficult to follow it. The number of 

 insects these birds destroy must be enormous, and though they 

 damage the buds and young shoots at times, yet it is only a case 

 of a minor evil, which must be put up with, while a larger one in the 

 shape of insects is destroyed. Of the nests of this bird which I have 

 found this year, the best one was on May 19th. It was in a hole in 

 an apple tree about five feet six inches from the ground and had 

 seven eggs in it, and was made of hair and wool and a little moss and 

 lined with feathers. Another nest found on May 13th had the bird 

 sitting on the eggs and I managed to catch it, but it was so frightened 

 and made such struggles to escape that I let it go in fear lest I should 

 hurt it. 



THE GREAT TIT. 



The Great Tit is our largest English representative of its 

 family, and, though not numerous, is usually well known from its 

 harsh powerful voice. I watched, this year, a great struggle between 

 a Great Tit and a Nut Hatch. I first found the Nut Hatch building 

 in a hole in a tree and left it undisturbed. A week later I paid it 

 another visit ; the Nut Hatch was gone, but a pair of Great Tits 

 were flying about the tree and had begun building on the top of the 

 Nut Hatch's nest. A few days later I paid a third visit to the spot. 

 The Nut Hatch had now come back and plastered up the hole so 

 that the Great Tit could not get in, and I expect it soon enjoyed a 

 comfortable nest itself. 



